Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment-Based Therapy on Anhedonia, Meaning in Life, Emotional Empathy, Child Parent Relationship and Quality of Life in Children, in Mothers of Children With Cancer

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Masters student, Department of Clinical Psychology, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch ,Islamic Azad University,Isfahan,Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Psychology, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch (Khorasgan) Isfahan, Iran (Corresponding Author).

3 Member of the Faculty of Psychology, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract
Aim and Background: The present study was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of commitment-based therapy on Anhedonia, Meaning in Life, Emotional Empathy, Child Parent Relationship and Quality of Life in Children, in Mothers of Children With Cancer.

Methods and Materials: The present study was a semi-experimental design of pre-test and post-test with a one-month follow-up test with a control group. The sample consisted of 36 mothers of children with cancer who visited Omid Shahr Hospital in Isfahan during the second 6 months of 1402. The subjects were selected by random sampling and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. the lack of hedonism questionnaire of Snit et al. (1995); Questionnaire of meaning in life Stegar et al. (2006); Emotional Empathy Questionnaire of Mehrabian and Epstein (1972); Pianta's Parent-Child Relationship Scale (1994); Children's quality of life scale was Varney, Sid, Curtin (2003). Also, mothers received 8 sessions of 90-minute commitment and acceptance therapy based on Westrup and Wright (2017) and Gilbert's compassion therapy (2009) were used to collect data and the collected data were analyzed with the help of Spss-23 software.

Findings: The findings showed that in the experimental group, the difference between the average scores of the pre-test, post-test and follow-up scores of lack of enjoyment of meaning in life, emotional empathy, parent-child relationship and child's quality of life is significant (P<0.01), but in The control group is not significant.

Keywords


 
Adhiya-Shah, K. (2017). Book review: the will to meaning: foundations and applications of logotherapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 278868.
Ahmadi, s., Baghreyn, f., Heidar, m., & Kashfi, a. (2017). Elderly and Meaning in Life: Field Study of Sources and Dimensions of Meaning in Old Women and Men. Psychological Achievements, 24(1), 1-22.
Berger, E., Garcia, Y., Catagnus, R., & Temple, J. (2021). The effect of acceptance and commitment training on improving physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 20, 70-78.
Forman, E. M., & Herbert, J. D. (2009). New directions in cognitive behavior therapy: Acceptance-based therapies. General principles and empirically supported techniques of cognitive behavior therapy, 52009, 77-101.
González-Fernández, S., & Fernández-Rodríguez, C. (2019). Acceptance and commitment therapy in cancer: review of applications and findings. Behavioral Medicine, 45(3), 255-269.
Hassanzadeh, M., Hassanzadeh, M., & Cheraghi, M. (2013). Investigating the relationship between parent-child relationship and social self-efficacy of adolescent girls and boys in Shiraz the second national conference of psychology - family psychology.
Hayes, S. (2016). Acceptance and commitment therapy: Cognitive delusion. Translated by Dusti P, Ahmadi F. Tehran: FaragirHegmataneh Press.
Hayes, S. C., Pistorello, J., & Levin, M. E. (2012). Acceptance and commitment therapy as a unified model of behavior change. The Counseling Psychologist, 40(7), 976-1002.
Hein, S., Röder, M., & Fingerle, M. (2018). The role of emotion regulation in situational empathy‐related responding and prosocial behaviour in the presence of negative affect. International Journal of Psychology, 53(6), 477-485.
Hughes, L. S., Clark, J., Colclough, J. A., Dale, E., & McMillan, D. (2017). Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for chronic pain: a systematic review and meta-analyses. The Clinical journal of pain, 33(6), 552-568.
Iri, H., Makvandi, B., Bakhtiarpour, S., & Hafezi, F. (2019). Comparison of the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy on health anxiety, psychosocial adjustment and cognitive emotion regulation of divorced women. medical journal of mashhad university of medical sciences, 61(supplment1), 79-88.
Leung, C., Tsang, S., Ng, G. S., & Choi, S. (2017). Efficacy of parent–child interaction therapy with Chinese ADHD children: randomized controlled trial. Research on Social Work Practice, 27(1), 36-47.
Lippold, M. A., Davis, K. D., Lawson, K. M., & McHale, S. M. (2016). Day-to-day Consistency in Positive Parent-Child Interactions and Youth Well-Being. J Child Fam Stud, 25(12), 3584-3592.
Nambisan, P. (2011). Information seeking and social support in online health communities: impact on patients' perceived empathy. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 18(3), 298-304.
Rakel, D. P., Hoeft, T. J., Barrett, B. P., Chewning, B. A., Craig, B. M., & Niu, M. (2009). Practitioner empathy and the duration of the common cold. Family medicine, 41(7), 494.
Rieffe, C., Ketelaar, L., & Wiefferink, C. H. (2010). Assessing empathy in young children: Construction and validation of an Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue). Personality and individual differences, 49(5), 362-367.
Schnell, T. (2009). The Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Questionnaire (SoMe): Relations to demographics and well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(6), 483-499.
Steger, M. F., Frazier, P., Oishi, S., & Kaler, M. (2006). The meaning in life questionnaire: assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life. Journal of counseling psychology, 53(1), 80.
Steger, M. F., Kawabata, Y., Shimai, S., & Otake, K. (2008). The meaningful life in Japan and the United States: Levels and correlates of meaning in life. Journal of Research in Personality, 42(3), 660-678.
Varni, J. W., Seid, M., & Kurtin, P. S. (2001). PedsQL™ 4.0: Reliability and validity of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ Version 4.0 Generic Core Scales in healthy and patient populations. Medical care, 39(8), 800-812.
Venunathan, A., Reethadevi, V., & Muthugounder, K. (2021). Childhood cancer–Angst and impact among the parents A cross-sectional survey. IOSR Journal of Nursing and Health Science (IOSR-JNHS), 10(3), 15-21.
Wang, F. M., Chen, J. Q., Xiao, W. Q., Ma, Y. T., & Zhang, M. (2012). Peer physical aggression and its association with aggressive beliefs, empathy, self-control, and cooperation skills among students in a rural town of China. Journal of interpersonal violence, 27(16), 3252-3267.
Westrup, D., & Wright, M. J. (2017). Learning ACT for group treatment: An acceptance and commitment therapy skills training manual for therapists. New Harbinger Publications.
Zhao, C., Lai, L., Zhang, L., Cai, Z., Ren, Z., Shi, C., Luo, W., & Yan, Y. (2021). The effects of acceptance and commitment therapy on the psychological and physical outcomes among cancer patients: A meta-analysis with trial sequential analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 140, 110304.