The Effects of Mental Imagery and Relaxation on the Rate of Anxiety, Depression, and Hopefulness in Women Suffering from Breast Cancer in Ahvaz Golestan Hopsital

The aim of this research was to determine the effectiveness of mental imagery and relaxation on the rate of anxiety, depression and hopefulness in women suffering from breast cancer in Ahvaz Golestan Hospital. The subjects were 40 women suffering from breast cancer. The patients were selected through random sampling and were divided into two groups of 20 persons. One group was taken as the experimental and the other as the control group. The measurement instruments were Cattel Anxiety Questionnaire (CAQ), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Miller Hopefulness scale (MHS), and a pretest was administered to both groups. Then, the experimental group underwent training ways and techniques of mental imagery and relaxation for one month (4 weeks), and 4 sessions per week for 45 minutes in the moarings and afternoons. After applying intervention, the two groups were tested again. For the analysis of the data the indices of mean, standard deviation and the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were used. The results indicated that mental imagery and relaxation were effective mitigators of anxiety and depression, and enhancers of hopefulness in women suffering from breast cancer.