The Effectiveness of Emotional Schema Therapy on the Quality of Life and the Sense of Agency of Breast Cancer Patients

Cancer is a chronic disease that, despite medical advances and the development of treatments, this disease is still unique in terms of the feeling of helplessness and deep fear it creates in a person, and the psychological and physical effects on many aspects of their lives, such as the quality of life. Disrupt life and sense of agency. In this research, the aim of the study was the effectiveness of emotional schema therapy on the quality of life and the sense of agency of breast cancer patients.

Methods and Materials:

 The research method is a randomized clinical trial with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population included all patients diagnosed with breast cancer in government cancer treatment centers located in Isfahan. The sample includes 36 patients with breast cancer from Seyed al-Shohda Hospital (AS) in Isfahan and Ala Cancer Prevention and Control Center, who were selected through available sampling and randomly divided into two experimental groups (18 people) and control groups (18 people). The experimental group underwent emotional schema therapy by Leahy (2012) in 9 sessions of 60 minutes. The data in this research, by Arnson quality of life questionnaire (1987) and Palito and et al (2013) sense of agency questionnaire was compiled in three stages: pre-test, post-test and follow-up. And it was done using analysis of variance with repeated measurements in SPSS-23 software.

The results of variance analysis with repeated measurements showed that emotional schema therapy significantly improved the quality of life and sense of agency of the experimental group (P<0.01).

The results of the present study showed that the effectiveness of emotional schema therapy on increasing the quality of life and sense of agency was confirmed in the present study. It is suggested to use this type of treatment to help breast cancer patients with death anxiety.