Cognitive behavioral therapy on personality characteristics of cancer patients

BACKGROUND: The main treatment methods for cancer include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, targeted drug therapy and so on. Patients often feel anger, anxiety, depression, and other negative psychological reactions in the process of treatment. AIM: To explore the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy on the personality characteristics of cancer patients. METHODS: According to the matching design requirements, 150 cancer patients were divided into 3 groups based on sex, age, condition, and cultural background. Patients in the control group received conventional treatment. Patients in experimental group 1 received an intervention based on conventional treatment combined with cognitive behavioral therapy. Patients in experimental group 2 received family members' participation in addition to the treatment given in experimental group 1. An Eysenck personality questionnaire was used to investigate all the patients before and after the intervention, and the scores for psychosis, introversion, neuroticism, and concealment degree were analyzed. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, for experimental group 1 and experimental group 2 before and after the intervention, the four dimensions of mental quality, neuroticism, introversion and concealment degree all decreased, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). After the intervention, there were no obvious or statistically significant differences (P > 0.05) among the control group, experimental group 1, and experimental group 2 for two personality traits, psychoticism and neuroticism, both inside and outside degree and all four dimensions. CONCLUSION: Simple cognitive behavioral therapy could not change the personality characteristics of cancer patients quickly, but the patients’ personality characteristics were significantly improved after treatment.