Introduction: Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent health issues among women worldwide, causing a wide range of psychological complications, such as illness perception and distress tolerance. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive mindfulness-based group therapy on illness perception and distress tolerance in women with breast cancer.
Methods: The method of this research is a semi-experimental type that was conducted in the year 1400 with a pre-test-post-test design. The number of 36 patients with breast cancer from Seyed al-Shohda Hospital and Alaa Cancer Prevention and Control Center of Isfahan, taking into account the entry and exit criteria. They were selected as available and randomly divided into two experimental (18 people) and control (18 people) groups. The experimental group underwent cognitive therapy based on Rebecca's (2009) mindfulness in 8 sessions of 60 minutes, and the control group received only routine medical and psychological care and did not participate in the therapeutic program. In order to collect data, Illness Perception Questionnaire (Broadbent) and Distress Tolerance Questionnaire (Simons) were used. Then the data was analyzed using the method of analysis of variance with repeated measurements.Findings: The results of the analysis showed that the Mindfulness-based cognitive group therapy significantly improved the illness perception and distress tolerance of the experimental group (P<0.01).
Conclusions: The results showed that the effectiveness of the Mindfulness-based cognitive group therapy on increasing illness perception and distress tolerance was confirmed in the present study.