Comparison of the Effectiveness of Logotherapy with Acceptance & Commitment Therapy on Pain Catastrophizing and Sense of Mental Coherence in Women with Breast Surgery Experience

 The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of logotherapy (LT) with acceptance & commitment therapy (ACT) on pain catastrophizing and sense of mental coherence in women with breast surgery experience.

This was a semi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest, controlled design with follow-up. The study population consisted of all women with breast cancer who were undergoing postmastectomy radiotherapy in Tabriz in 2023. In total, 45 women were selected by a purposive sampling method, and divided into three groups, 10 each. The ntervention groups received their respective treatments over 8 sessions of 1.5 hours. The control group did not receive any intervention. Members in three groups responded to the 13-item pain catastrophic of Sullivan et al and 35-item Flensberg Sense of Coherence Questionnaires, after and 4 months after the intervention. Data were analyzed with repeated-measures analysis of variance.

The results showed that LT (30.1±5.3) and ACT (29.9±5.4) in comparison with the control group (37.6±5.2), in the post-test, reduced the pain catastrophizing of women with breast surgery experience (P<0.001), and these results also show a lasting effect in the follow-up stage (P<0.001). Also, the results showed that LT (55.2±3.5) and ACT (55.0±2.9) compared to the control group (48.8±3.5), in the post-test, increased the sense of mental coherence of women with breast surgery experience (P<0.001), and these results also show a lasting effect in the follow-up stage (P<0.001). The results also showed that the effect of these two treatments on pain catastrophizing and sense of mental coherence in the post-test and follow-up stages were not different (P>0.05).

Logotherapy and acceptance & commitment therapy  reduces the pain catastrophizing and increases the sense of mental coherence in women with breast surgery experience.