EFFECTIVENESS OF SPIRITUAL THERAPY ON THE LIFE QUALITY OF THE WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER IN TEHRAN

Spirituality therapy means considering the cultural-religious beliefs of the people
in the therapy process and considering the transcendental dimension of the clientele which guides them
towards transcendental source. The importance of spirituality and spiritual growth in human is
increasingly gaining the attention of psychologists and mental health specialists within the recent
decades. The purpose of this research is determining the effectiveness of spiritual therapy on the life
quality of the women with breast cancer in Tehran in 2016.
Material & Methods: In this study, quasi-experimental research and pretest-posttest plan id applied with
control groups. The statistical population includes 30 patients with breast cancer who referred
toSoleimanzadehSpecialized Clinic of Oncology and Chemotherapy in Tehran, who were selected with
the convenience sampling method and were randomly divided into two groups of 15 as a control group
and the other 15 persons as a test group. The test group went on spiritual intervention for 12 sessions of
60 minutes and the control group only got the chemotherapy without spiritual intervention. The
shortened version of 1999 World Health Organization HRQL questionnaires were completed before and
after the treatment period.
The questionnaire measures 4 areas including: physical health, mental health, social relations and
environmental health.SPSS 19 software was usedat descriptive and inferential level to analyze the data.
Covariance analysis method (ANCOVA) and multivariate covariance analysis (MANCOVA) were used
to investigate the hypothesis.
Results: Results of covariance analysis of life quality shows thatthe life quality score for women with
breast cancer in the test groupis increased after applying the independent variable (spiritual therapy) and
the difference with the control group was significant.
The results of Multivariate Covariance analysis of life quality subscale show that the average scoreof
test group in three subscales (Physical health, psychological and social relationship health) in post-test
is higher than in the control group ; and is statistically significant.There was no significant difference
between the two groups in environmental health subscale.
Conclusion: According to the findings, it seems that spiritual intervention is effective in life quality of
women affected with breast cancer. So, through training the spiritual therapy virtual actions could be
taken to improve their life quality and their mental health