The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Depression,Quality of Life and Serum Cortisol Levels in Women with Breast Cancer

AbstractBreast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women. Diagnosis and treatment can all be extremely stressful. This study aimed to review mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on quality of life, depression, and serum cortisol levels in women with breast cancer.This study is a quasi-experimental research project of pre test-posttest with the control group. The statistical society contains 30 women with breast cancer referred to Omid Hospital in Mashhad that they were selected by sampling method and they were randomly divided into two groups of 15 people of the experimental and control group. To do the therapy, a trained clinical psychologist held 8 sessions of 90 minutes per week for the experimental group, while the control group received no treatment session. To measure variables from Beck depression questionnaires (BDI-II), quality of life SF36, and to evaluate cortisol levels, the blood samples were taken between 8 and 10 am before the first and last treatment sessions were started. In the statistics section, while describing the data descriptively and examining the assumptions of analysis of covariance (Shapiro-Wilk test,,Levin test, regression line homogeneity test and ..)statistical test of analysis of covariance was used. The results showed that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is effective in reduced depression and enhanced quality of life and increased serum cortisol from low to moderate levels within the normal laboratory range (P <0.001). The results showed that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy can be used as an effective intervention to promote mental health in patients.