Comparison of Schema Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on Post-Traumatic Growth and Psychological Capital in Women with Breast Cancer

Being diagnosed with cancer is a traumatic crisis and affects various aspects of a person's life. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to compare schema therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction on post-traumatic growth and psychological capital in women with breast cancer.

The current research is quasi-experimental study with a pre-test-post-test control group design based on a three-month follow-up. The study population consisted of women with breast cancer referred to the Oncology Clinic of Imam Khomeini Hospital (RA) in Tehran between 2019 and 2023. Of whom, 45 were selected by the convenience sampling method and randomly were divided into two experimental groups and one control group (each group contained 15 people). To collect information, measuring tools such as Tedeschi and Calhoun’s post-traumatic growth Inventory (1996) and Luthans’s Psychological Capital Questionnaire (2007) were used. Data analysis was also done using variance analysis with repeated measures.

The results showed that post-traumatic growth and psychological capital in two methods of schema therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction had significant differences compared to the control group. Moreover, the comparison of the two methods showed that the effect of mindfulness-based stress reduction treatment on post-traumatic growth and psychological capital was significantly different from schema therapy (p<0.05). The results of the Bonferroni post-hoc test also showed that the effectiveness of two mindfulness-based stress reduction and schema therapy was stable over time (p<0.05).

According to the findings, both methods of mindfulness-based stress reduction and schema therapy affected increasing post-traumatic growth and psychological capital in women with breast cancer. In addition, the comparison between the two methods showed that mindfulness-based stress reduction is more effective than schema therapy.