Abstract:
Objective: The present research aimed to assess the effectiveness of Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy (ACT) on the hope of patients with breast cancer undergoing
chemotherapy.
Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 30 patients with breast cancer were selected by
convenience sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The
experimental group attended ACT sessions for 8 weeks continuously (each session lasting 45
minutes). Customers/clients in both the experimental and control groups completed Snyder hope
scale as pretest and posttest. Analysis of covariance was used as the statistical method.
Results: The findings suggest that ACT is an effective treatment for breast cancer treated
patients (P<0.001, F=279.025), including those with low levels of hope.
Conclusion: The results showed that ACT is an effective method in rising hope in women with
breast cancer. Thus, psychological interventions can be used to increase the hope of women
with breast cancer
Machine summary:
"The prognosis of breast cancer has im- proved largely due to advances in more effective and bet- ter-tolerated therapies, but this has also resulted in more complex survivorship problems for these patients with a high need for psychological support (Reed, Simmonds, Haviland, & Corner, 2012).
Furthermore, being aware of their lev- els of hope during therapy can expand the possibilities of care to these individuals, because in such moments, hope becomes a feeling capable of making people envision a horizon of life with new perspectives, starting to believe in good times even when a chronic disease like cancer arises in their life, and brings with it the stigma of incur- ability and a long painful treatment (Wakiuchi, Apareci- da Marchi, Sharlise Norvila, Silva Marcon, & Aparecida Sales, 2015).
ACT aims to increase psychological flexibil- ity, and thereby improving the individual function that is done by 6 processes, including acceptance, diffusion, self as context, contact with present moment, clarifying values, and committed action (Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, 2006).
To evaluate the effectiveness of ACT on hope of women with breast cancer, after calculating the scores of pretest and posttest in both experimental and control groups, Levene’s test for homogeneity of variances and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were performed.
In another study, ACT can be an effective intervention approach for patients with cancer that increases acceptance regarding disease and simultaneously leads to improve- ment in the meaning of life (Datta, Aditya, Chakraborty, Das, & Mukhopadhyay, 2015)."