Evaluating the Effect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Anxiety and Quality of Life in Stomach Cancer Patients

Stomach cancer is one of the most common cancers and can cause psychological problems and negatively impact patients' lives. The present research evaluated the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on anxiety and quality of life (QOL) in stomach cancer patients.

The present semi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population consisted of 738 stomach cancer patients who visited Hiwa Cancer Hospital in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, in 2022. Using simple random sampling, 150 people were selected and divided into two experimental and control groups (75 each). The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck et al., 1988) and SF-36 Quality of Life Questionnaire (Ware & Sherbourne, 1992) were used to collect data. The collected data were analyzed using the independent t-test, chi-square test, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) in SPSS software. The significance level was considered to be less than 0.05.

The study findings showed that ACT had a significant effect on decreasing anxiety (F = 130.91; P < 0.001), and increasing QOL (F = 110.01; P < 0.001) in stomach cancer patients.

The results indicated that ACT affects the level of anxiety and the QOL of patients with gastric cancer and while reducing anxiety, it increases their QOL. Consequently, it is recommended that treatment personnel consider ACT as an effective psychological intervention in these patients.