Development and Effectiveness of Emotion-based Therapy on the Components of Psychological Adaptation to Cancer in the Elderly

IntroductionElderly is a process that is genetically visible during the life of living things and decreases in the organism over time, which reduces the activities of the organs of the body. Although it is not an aging disease and most of the elderly can be seen in other age groups, the elderly process is facilitating physical diseases, including cancer. The formation of tumors becomes. These cells grow very rapidly and usually cause severe pain by pressing on healthy tissues and nerve fibers, blocking fluid flow in the body, and disrupting the activity of the organs. MethodThe present semi-experimental research design was used with a pre-test-then-test with the control group. The research community is all the 60 to 75-year-olds residing in Tehran in 2021 who have been diagnosed with Stage 1 and Stage 2 cancer, of which 30 elderly women were referred to medical centers for treatment. The semi-trial design was used to determine the effectiveness of the emotion therapy. The pre-test was first implemented and then accidentally performed in one of the two experimental groups of excitement treatment, and the control group received no training and was implemented at the end of the post-test training. Research Criteria: Over 60 years old, getting a cancer diagnosis, mental consciousness, lack of participation in another therapeutic program, wanting to cooperate, elderly with cancer, tendency to attend intervention, and exit criterion unwilling to participate in intervention. The selected sample was accessible through random selection into two groups of tests and certificates. The emotion-based treatment package was developed and presented in the format of 10 sessions, each 90 minutes long, and content validity was used to validate it. The research tool was the questionnaire on psychological adaptation to cancer by Watson et al. (1988). Coronbach's alpha was used for data analysis using conventional descriptive statistics (average and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (repeated measurement variance analysis). ResultsThe results of the study showed that the emotional intervention package was able to significantly increase mental compatibility with cancer. In addition, the excitement intervention package was followed up after the post-test execution, and the results showed that there was no tangible post-test change after two months (p < 0.001). DiscussionTherefore, excitement-based treatment with recovery experiences and changing the meaningful meanings of any experience has a corrective training for stabilized emotional strategies that enhance the use of efficient and positive strategies and better adaptation to the disease by breaking the inefficient strategy and better adaptation to the disease. Since this study was conducted on older women with cancer in Tehran, it is recommended that other cultural and gender groups be aware of the generalization of the results.