Impact of a Psycho-Educational Team in early Breast Cancer Patients’ Coping Strategies: The Venere Project

Title:Impact of a Psycho-Educational Team in early Breast Cancer Patients’ Coping Strategies: The Venere Project

Volume: 13 Issue: 4

Author(s): Federica Andreis, Fausto Meriggi*, Claudio Codignola, Ilaria Frigoli, Tiziana Prochilo, Stefano Mutti, Alessandra Huscher, Michela Libertini, Brunella Di Biasi, Chiara Abeni, Chiara Ogliosi, Silvia Noventa, Luigina Rota, Chiara Pedrali and Alberto Zaniboni

Affiliation:

• Oncology Department, Fondazione Poliambulanza, Brescia,Italy

Keywords: Anxiety, body image, breast cancer, depression, psycho-educational group, psychological support.

Abstract: Aims and Background: The main purpose of our psycho-educational groups was to help women with breast cancer, learn how to cope with the physical, emotional, and lifestyle changes associated with cancer as well as with medical treatments that can be painful and traumatic. With this study, we wanted to detect the effects that group action had on the women who participated in it.

Methods: We studied a total of 97 patients who participated in 13 psycho-education groups. The whole sample was female patients who had breast cancer with no recurrence or metastases.

Results: All patients were evaluated with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Body Image Scale (BIS). We found no significant effect on anxiety and body image for the brief psycho- educational group for women with breast cancer in this study. It is possible to highlight a statistical difference and hence an improvement between the results of the HADS depression test at T0 (first evaluation at the first meeting) and T1 (retest in the final meeting).

Conclusion: The tests did not show a significant effect on anxiety and body image perception, but the patients reported that the psycho-educational group was an important intervention for their life. Outcome measurement is more complex in psychosocial research because many variables come into play and each phase of treatment is characterized by different types of problems for the patient: physical, relational and psychological aspects are involved.

Cite this article as:

Andreis Federica, Meriggi Fausto*, Codignola Claudio, Frigoli Ilaria, Prochilo Tiziana, Mutti Stefano, Huscher Alessandra, Libertini Michela, Di Biasi Brunella, Abeni Chiara, Ogliosi Chiara, Noventa Silvia, Rota Luigina, Pedrali Chiara and Zaniboni Alberto, Impact of a Psycho-Educational Team in early Breast Cancer Patients’ Coping Strategies: The Venere Project, Reviews on Recent Clinical Trials 2018; 13 (4) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1574887113666180409152025