The Effect of Stress Management Consulting on Stress in Women with Breast Cancer

Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and endangers various aspects of a person s sexual and individual health as well as the lifequality. The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of stress management consulting on stress in women with breast cancer. Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up checks consisting two groups of experimental and control. To this end, 104 women with breast cancer referring to Hamadan s Mahdiyeh MRI Center were conventionally selected in 2015. Using permutation blocks, they were randomly divided into two experimental and control groups (n= 52). The experimental group received stress management counseling sessions in nine 2-hour sessions.. Data collection instruments included demographic questionnaire and Harry s stress questionnaire.. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics and two-way ANOVAwere used Results: mean ± SD stress in the control group pretest 252.5192 ± 25.2357 and for experimental group was 239.15 ± 23.3963. Moreover, significant differences were observed in mean scores of stress in experimental and control groups before and after the treatment (p=.001) and the stress of the experimental group in posttest and follow-uptestshad reduced. Conclusion: The results showed that cognitive - behavioral group therapy of stress management reduces stress in the experimental group after the intervention and follow-up period with an interval of two weeks. Therefore, this method can be used as a complementary therapy along with medical treatment in oncology centers

کلیدواژه ها:

Cognitive - behavioral group therapy ، stress management ، stress ، breast cancer