The Effectiveness of Compassion-Focused Therapy on Depression, anxiety, stress, and Quality of Life in Cancer Patients

Objective: Cancer is a chronic and life-threatening disease. More than 50% of cancer patients suffer from some mental disorders. Self-compassion and beyond it, Compassion-focused therapy is a new approach in psychology. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of compassion-focused Therapy (CFT) on depression, anxiety, stress, and quality of life of cancer patients. Methods: This study was designed as an experimental pretest-posttest control‐grouped. Thirty cancer patients who had been referred to the chemotherapy ward of Imam Khomeini Hospital, Iran were selected by the available sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. CFT was only provided to the experimental group for 8 weeks. All participants were assessed by Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), Depression Anxiety Stress (DASS), and EORTC QLQ-C30 before, after, and two months after intervention (follow-up study).  Data were analyzed by Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) with SPSS 23. Results: Our results showed that anxiety, depression, and stress were significantly reduced in the experimental group after treatment and follow-up (P<0.01). Also, the quality of life significantly increased after treatment and follow-up compared to the control group. Conclusions:  This study showed that CFT could be an effective treatment for symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in cancer patients. Also, CFT increased the quality of life in patients with cancer.