Comparing the Effectiveness of Two Group Therapy Methods based on Compassion and Mindfulness on the Psychological Capital of Colon Cancer Patients with Ostomy.

Ostomy surgery in colon cancer patients leads to mental and emotional damage, in which high psychological capital in a person can reduce the severity of the damages. This study was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of two group therapy methods based on compassion and mindfulness on the psychological capital of colon cancer patients with ostomy.

This was a semi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest with a control group design. Among the ostomy colon cancer patients who visited Imam Hossein (AS) Hospital in Tehran for treatment in the second quarter of 2018, the number of 45 eligible individuals were selected using convenience sampling method and were randomly allocated within blocks. They were divided into three groups of 15 people each (intervention 1, intervention 2 and control). In the intervention groups, compassion-based and mindfulness-based therapy methods were implemented respectively. Each group intervention duration was 8 sessions of 45 minutes each. Data were collected using Lutans psychological capital questionnaire (2007) in the pre-test and post-test phases and analyzed using analysis of variance using SPSS-24.

The results showed that both of group therapy methods based on compassion and mindfulness were effective on the psychological capital of colon cancer patients with ostomy (p<0.01). Furthermore, the results of the Bonferroni test and the adjusted means indicated that the compassion-based group therapy method had a greater effect than the mindfulness-based group therapy in enhancing resilience, optimism and self-efficacy (p<0.01).

Considering the positive effects of the both mentioned methods on psychological capital, counselors and therapists can use psychological interventions such as compassion-based and mindfulness-based group therapy to improve the psychological capital of colon cancer patients with ostomy.