The Effect of Stress Management Model in Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Women

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer associates with severs severe distress and stress. Since Because of that, the stress management program can train necessary skills to cope with stress; therefore, the current study investigates the effectiveness of stress management on enhancement of quality of life. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the current study is to examine the effectiveness of stress management model in quality of life for breast cancer patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This research is a quasi-experimental study with pre and post-tests. The 21 subjects were selected from cancer institute of Imam Khomeini in Tehran in 2014. The participants were allocated to two matched groups based on their pre-test scores. They were assigned randomly to the control and experimental groups. Stress management was conducted with the experimental group during 10 sessions. Then the questionnaire was administered at post-test. Statistical analysis was conducted by using the independent t-test and analysis of variance. The research instrument was the core quality of life questionnaire QLQ-C30. RESULTS: The results of the independent t-test showed that there is a significant difference between the pretest and post-test scores in the experimental group (P < 0.05). Also, there is no significant difference between means of quality of life subscales and socio demographic of the patients such as; age, education and disease stage (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that stress management can change the irrational and distortion thoughts. So, it enhances the quality of life in breast cancer patients.