Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Background and purpose: Cancer is one of the most important diseases of the last century and the third leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 10 million people are diagnosed with various types of cancer each year. Among them, breast cancer is one of the most common, dangerous, and emotionally and psychologically impactful cancers among women. Breast cancer is called excessive growth of breast tissue. In Iran, breast cancer accounts for 21.4% of all reported cases. The diagnosis of this disease is life-threatening for the affected person because it has devastating effects on the quality of life. The present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral stress management on distress tolerance and post-traumatic growth in women with breast cancer.

Research method: The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design and a control group and a three-month follow-up period. The statistical population was made up of women with breast cancer who visited a private clinic located in Tehran in 2022 and met the conditions to be included in the study. Among them, 30 people entered the study in a targeted and voluntary way and were randomly assigned in two groups of 15 people (experimental and control). Then, the subjects in the experimental group each received 8 sessions of cognitive behavioral stress management therapy (according to the protocol of Anthony et al., 2007). Distress Tolerance Questionnaire (Simmons & Gahr, 2005) and Posttraumatic Growth (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996) were administered as research instruments in two stages before and after training in both groups. The data were analyzed using the analysis of variance test with repeated measurements in the statistical software SPSS version 26. Also, in order to more accurately examine the differences between the three stages in the cognitive behavioral stress management group, a post hoc LSD test was used. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05.

Findings: The findings showed that before the intervention, there was no significant difference between the mean distress tolerance scores of the experimental and control groups and between the mean posttraumatic growth scores of the experimental and control groups (P<0.005). However, after the intervention, there was a significant difference between the mean distress tolerance scores in the intervention and control groups and between the mean posttraumatic growth scores in the intervention and control groups (P<0.005). In other words, the results of the analysis of variance with repeated measures showed that the effect of cognitive-behavioral stress management training on the variables of distress tolerance (P<0.001) and posttraumatic growth (P<0.001) was significant. Also, in the three-month follow-up period, cognitive-behavioral stress management training in the experimental group participants maintained its effect.

Conclusion: According to the results of the study, the use of non-pharmacological cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention is effective in reducing distress and post-traumatic growth in women with breast cancer and improves their psychological problems; therefore, the use of cognitive-behavioral stress management programs in treatment centers for breast cancer patients is recommended.