The Effectiveness of Group Compassion Focused Therapy on Illness Perception and Psychosocial Adjustment in Women with Breast Cancer: Follow-Up Two Months

Izadkhast, Samaneh; Poursharifi, Hamid; Kraskian Mujemnari, Adis; Bahrami Hidaji, Maryam; Tabarraee, Mahdi

doi:10.22059/japr.2026.408335.645454

The Effectiveness of Group Compassion Focused Therapy on Illness Perception and Psychosocial Adjustment in Women with Breast Cancer: Follow-Up Two Months

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Samaneh Izadkhast ¹

Hamid Poursharifi ²

Adis Kraskian Mujemnari ³

Maryam Bahrami Hidaji ⁴

Mahdi Tabarraee ⁵

¹ Department of Psychology, Ka.C., Islamic Azad University, .Karaj, Iran

² 2. Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Behavioral Sciences and Health Mental, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

³ Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Ka.C., Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran

⁴ Department of Psychology, Ka.C., Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran

⁵ 5. Department of Hematology-Oncology, Faculty of Medical Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Taleghani Hospital, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/japr.2026.408335.645454

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to effectiveness of compassion focused therapy on illness perception and psychosocial adjustment in women with breast cancer. This semi-experimental study was conducted with a pretest-posttest design with control group and follow-up 2 month. The statistical population was women with breast cancer at Taleghani Hospital in Tehran in the summer of 2025. Then the number of 40 women with breast cancer were randomly divided into two groups, including an experimental group (20 women with breast cancer) and a control group (20 women with breast cancer). Then the experimental group underwent 10 sessions of 90 minute compassion focused therapy. The brief illness perception questionnaire (BIPQ) and psychosocial-social adaptation to disease scale (PSADS) were used to collect data. To collect data analysis of variance with repeated measures and Bonferroni post hoc test was used for data analysis. The data analysis software was SPSS version 29. The results showed that compassion focused therapy had a significant effect on illness perception and psychosocial adjustment in women with breast cancer (P<0.05). These findings indicate that compassion focused therapy can be used in an educational and therapeutic context to illness perception and psychosocial adjustment in women with breast cancer.

Keywords

breast cancer

compassion focused therapy

illness perception

psychosocial adjustment