Compassion-Focused Therapy on Levels of Anxiety and Depression AmongWomen with Breast Cancer: A Randomized Pilot Trial

Background: Compassion can help people regulate their emotional responses to cancer-induced bodily changes. However, compassion effects on levels of anxiety and depression among breast cancer patients is largely unknown. Objectives: The present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of compassion-focused interventions on anxiety and depression levels among patients with breast cancer in Ahvaz, Iran. Methods: This study was a randomized controlled trial with pre- and post-tests. Respondent-driven sampling was used to sample from women, who visited clinical oncology ward in Golestan Hospital in Ahvaz. The primary sample consisted of 30 patients with breast cancer. They, then, were randomly allocated to two experimental and control groups. Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) was provided to the experimental group for 8 weeks, and the control group only received motivational enhancement therapy (MET). The data were analyzed in two stages of pre- and post-test, using Chi-square test and covariance analysis through SPSS software. Results: After adjusting for pre-test scores, the primary outcomes showed that compassion-focused interventions had a significant effect on the reduction of depression symptoms; also, secondary outcomes showed that this intervention was associated with a significant decrease in anxiety levels (all< 0.001). However, according to the findings, the interventionshadgreater positive impacts on the anxiety levels. Conclusions: These findings can confirm the efficacy of psychological interventions in patients with cancer in planning future interventions and linking medical and psychiatric therapies.