Effectiveness of Group Poetry Therapy in Reducing Psychological Problems and Improving Quality Of Life in Patients with Breast Cancer

Background and Group poetry therapy has been implemented to overcome psychological problems associated with different diseases. Cancer seems to be one of the main targets for group poetry therapy. The aim of this study was to explore the effectiveness of group poetry therapy on the hope, quality of life, and some psychological problems in patients with breast cancer.
A sample of 60 participants were randomly divided into intervention (n=20) or control (n=40) groups. Eight sessions of weekly poetry therapy was carried out for the intervention group. Miller’s Hope Scale, EORTC-QLQ-C30, and DASS21 questionnaires were administered before initiation of therapy. Then, the intervention group completed the questionnaires at one week and two months after the intervention. IBM SPSS V. 21 was applied for data analysis.
In this research, poetry therapy improved patient’s hope after one week and eight weeks of intervention (the score in both cases increased from 54 to 67, P= 0.03 and P= 0.05, respectively). Also, the scores for quality of life showed an increase from 186 to 197 after the intervention (P= 0.02 and P= 0.06 respectively). Moreover, physical complaints and stress decreased to some extent after the last session of therapy (P= 0.08 and P= 0.09, respectively).
This study showed that group poetry therapy as a preventive or palliative intervention could improve patient’s hope and quality of life and also reduce physical complaints and stress in short-term and medium-term.