The effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on the rate of acceptance and post-traumatic growth in colorectal cancer patients comorbid with stress

Objective (s): 

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common chronic diseases and the second most common cause of cancer deaths in the world, which is associated with many physical and psychological complications. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on the acceptance and post-traumatic Growth in Colorectal Cancer Patients Comorbid with Stress.

This was a quasi-experimental study with pretest, posttest and two-months follow-up design and a control group. Using stratified sampling method, 30 patients with colorectal cancer were randomly selected and randomly assigned to experimental group and control group. The data were collected by three questionnaires of stress-anxiety-depression, acceptance and practice and post-traumatic growth and were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc test.

According to the results, there was a significant difference between the two groups in the pre-test, post-test and follow-up stages (P<0.01). Also, the results of the post hoc test showed that there was a significant difference between the pre-test with post-test and follow-up scores (P<0.01) and between the post-test with follow-up scores the non-significant difference (P>0.05).

The results support the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy as an effective psychological intervention to increase the degree of acceptance and post-traumatic growth in colorectal cancer patients.