THE EFFICACY OF SPIRITUAL / RELIGIOUS PSYCHOTHERAPY – EMPHASIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF 15TH AND 23TH PRAYERS OF SAHIFEHSAJJADIYEH- ON MENTAL HEALTH AND ATTITUDE TOWARD DISEASE IN CANCER PATIENTS

Cancer has a negative impact on the various aspects of life in patients with cancer
in varying degrees. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of religious-spiritual
psychotherapy with emphasis on the importance of prayers No. 15 and 23 of SahifehSajjadieh on the
attitude toward illness and mental health in cancer patients in Ahvaz city.
Material & Methods: In a pre-test-post-testdesign with control group, 30 cancer patients in Ahwaz were
selected using available sampling method and randomly assigned to two intervention and control groups
(each group consisted of 15 subjects).The intervention group received 6 sessions (weekly 2 sessions)of
90 minutes religious-spiritualpsychotherapy intervention with emphasis on the importance of prayers
No. 15 and 23 of SahifehSajjadieh. The instruments used were Goldberg and Hillier mental health
questionnaire and the Illness Attitude Scales (IAS) of Kellner, completed in two stages before and end
of intervention. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data and to determine the significance
level, the test ANOVA, (p<0.01) was used.
Results: The results of multivariate analysis of covariance showed thatspiritual / religious psychotherapy
- emphasizing the importance of 15th and 23th prayers of SahifehSajjadiyeh-increased mental health
(P<0/005) and positive attitude toward illness (P<0/002) in cancer patients of the experimental group in
comparison to the control group in post-test.
Conclusion: Considering the positive effect of this intervention on improving mental health and also
strengthening the positive attitude toward illness, this intervention can be appropriate for cancer patients
along with other treatments and could be used as a treatment approach in hospitals and counseling
centers