The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on Appearance Schema and Shame/Guilt Emotion in Married Women with Breast Cancer

Background: Due to many psychological problems and issues and the need for psychotheraeutic interventions in cancer patients, this study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on the appearance schema and shame/guilt emotion in married women with breast cancer.Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and a control group.The study population consisted of all married women aged 20-45 with breast cancer in Ardabil city, who underwent modified mastectomy and visited a physicians' office for follow-up in 1402.A total number of 39 people were selected by simple random sampling and divided into two groups, experimental (n=19) and control (n=20) .The experimental group participated in 8 sessions of educational intervention on acceptance and commitment therapy by Hayes & Strosahl (2010).Data collection tools included the shame and guilt proneness scale of Cohen et al. (2011) and the Cash et al. ( 2003) appearance schema inventory.Data analysis was performed using the multivariate analysis of variance test using the SPSS-22 statistics software.Results: According to the results, in the experimental and control groups, there were significant differences among the shame emotion (F=64.13,p<0.01), guilt proneness (F=67.22,p<0.01) and appearance schema (F=77.14, p<0.01).This means that the acceptance and commitment therapy reduced the appearance schema and shame/guilt emotion in the experimental group.Conclusion: Considering that the acceptance and commitment therapy had a positive effect on appearance schema and shame/guilt emotion in married women with breast cancer.Therefore, this treatment may be used to reduce the psychological problems in these patients.