The Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Distress Tolerance and Death Anxiety in Patients with Lung Cancer

Abstract

Background: Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent types of cancer and one of the world's leading causes of death. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate how well acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) treats distress tolerance and death anxiety in patients with lung cancer. Methods: The current research was practical in terms of purpose and quasi-experimental in terms of method with a pre-test, post-test, and follow-up design with a control group. The statistical population consisted of 317 patients with lung cancer referred to the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2021. Simple random sampling was utilized to select 70 patients from the group. The participants were separated randomly into experimental and control groups (35 in each group). In order to collect information, questionnaires of distress tolerance and death anxiety were used. The SPSS software was used to perform repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: The experimental and control groups differed in the post-test death anxiety measures and distress tolerance components (P < 0.001). In addition, the outcomes remained constant across the follow-up period (P < 0.001). Conclusion: This study showed that in patients with lung cancer, ACT raised distress tolerance and decreased anxiety about death. In addition to medical programs to lessen and manage discomfort and death anxiety, educational and psychological programs must be offered to patients with lung cancer in order to improve their mental health.

Keywords

• lung neoplasms
• acceptance and commitment therapy
• psychological distress
• anxiety