Comparison of the effecacy of compassion-based therapy and behavioral activation therapy on perceived stress and self-efficacy in women with breast cancer

One of the most common types of cancer in the world is breast cancer in women, which has many negative effects on the physical and mental condition of women. Psychological interventions have been the focus of some studies due to the psychological nature of breast cancer. It seems that it is necessary to pay more attention to psychological interventions to reduce the psychological problems of women with breast cancer.

The purpose of this research was to compare of the effecacy of compassion-based therapy and behavioral activation therapy on perceived stress and self-efficacy in women with breast cancer.

The current research design was a semi-experimental pre-test-post-test type with a control group and a two-month follow-up. 45 women with breast cancer in Gorgan during 2021-2022 were placed in three groups of compassion-based treatment, behavioral activation treatment and control group by simple random sampling method. Perceived stress (Cohen et al., 1983) and self-efficacy (Sherer et al., 1982) questionnaires were used to collect data, and the participants in the experimental groups underwent the interventions of compassion-based therapy (Gilbert, 2006) and behavioral activation therapy (Dimidchian et al. et al., 2006) were included in 8 sessions of 90 minutes. Also, the data were analyzed by repeated measurement variance analysis with the help of Spss19 software.

The findings of the research showed that both compassion-based therapy and behavioral activation therapy were effective on the perceived stress and self-efficacy of women with breast cancer (p<0.05). Also, the results showed that behavioral activation therapy was more effective than compassion-based therapy, and this significant level was stable in the follow-up phase.

According to the obtained results, it can be said that interventions based on compassion and behavioral activation therapy were highly effective inimproving self-efficacy, and reducing perceived stress. Therefore, the results of this study can help therapists, psychologists and policymakers in the field of health and mental health.