Research News

Supervised by Dr. M. Anisur Rahman

Abstract

The present research was carried out to see the effect of psychotherapeutic interventions in managing psychological problems of women with breast cancer with two specific objectives; one was to assess psychological problems among women with breast cancer and the second one was to see whether psychological management can be effective to manage psychological problems. It was hypothesized that psychotherapeutic interventions would reduce psychological problems of women with breast cancer. A total of 10 females with breast cancer were purposively selected from two private hospitals in Dhaka city. Ten female patients with breast cancer were selected purposively with the help of General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and pre determined inclusion and exclusion criteria to provide psychotherapy. The age range of the subjects was 25-57 years and their average age was 43.2. The study was conducted using both qualitative and quantitative research method. Single case study was employed to explore psychological sufferings associated with breast cancer so that appropriate psychotherapeutic interventions could be provided to the participants. Pre-post design was used to see the effect of psychotherapeutic interventions in managing psychological problems of the subjects. To collect data from the participants mainly, in-depth interview was employed. In addition to this, Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) and general Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), socio-demographic questionnaire and 11 point rating scale were used to assess outcome of psychotherapeutic interventions. Each participant was asked to provide base line rating of her problems, to fill in HADS, GHQ-28 and ftinctional level of assessment to collect quantitative base line measures at the first session. After collecting base line data and psychometric measures in depth interview was used to explore the nature and intensity of psychological problems of the participants after being diagnosed of having breast cancer. Cognitive behavior therapy was applied to all the patients and couple therapy was used for three participants to manage psychological distress. In the last session the researcher was performed post measures using same quantitative measures administered in the first session. The findings of this study evince that breast cancer diagnosis and its treatment are associated with lots of psychological problems like severe emotional distress, physical effects of breast cancer treatment and even after completing a successful treatment the participants of this study felt hopeless, sad and worried about recurrence. Significant improvement occurred regarding the participants’ cognitive, behavioral, emotional, physical and environmental problems. Considerable positive effects were found in respect of the subjects’ level of fiinctioning in different areas like social, personal, occupational etc. Thus, the resuhs of the study confirmed the hypothesis that psychotherapeutic interventions can reduce psychological problems of women with breast cancer.