Investigating the Effectiveness of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy on the Concern about Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Perceived Stress in Women with Breast Surgery Experience

Background: Mastectomy surgery causes psychological problems such as concern about body dysmorphic disorder and stress in women.This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) on body dysmorphic disorder concern and perceived stress in women with breast surgery experience.Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and follow-up with a control group.A total of 30 women undergoing radiotherapy followed by mastectomy were selected by convenience sampling from specialized breast cancer clinics in Tabriz City in 2022.They were randomly divided into experimental and control groups (15 people in each group).The experimental group received a group-based rational-emotional behavioral therapy for 8 sessions of 1.5 hours each (for 2 months, one session per week), according to the treatment program of Smkhani Akbarinejad.Both groups completed the Littleton et al.'s body image concern questionnaire and Cohen et al.'s perceived stress questionnaire at three stages of the study including pre-test, post-test, and 3 months after the intervention.Data were analyzed using SPSS-24 software using repeated measures analysis of variance and Bonferroni posthoc tests.Results: At the pre-test, no significant differences were observed between the mean and standard deviation of the concern about body dysmorphic disorder and perceived stress scores in both groups (p<0.05).While, after the intervention, the mean scores of the variables in the test group (concern about body dysmorphic disorder 43.96.9 and perceived stress 22.73.7)were significantly lower than those in the control group (concern about body dysmorphic was 59.76.1 and perceived stress was 27.43.9)(p<0.001), and this reduction continued at the follow-up phase as well (p<0.001). Conclusion:Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that rational emotional behavior therapy can reduce the concern about body dysmorphic disorder and the perceived stress in women who have undergone breast surgery.Therefore, this treatment method can be used to improve psychological problems caused by breast surgery in these women.