Cancer and Mindfulness Based Intervention Programs: Systematic Review

Abstract

Recently, the effects of the mindfulness-based interventions on psychological health and quality of life have been studied with the patients having psychological disorders as well as the patients with physical illnesses, especially patients with cancer. The current systematic literature review aims to investigate the randomized controlled trials made to find out the effects of the mindfulness-based interventions (mindfulness-based stress reduction program, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and mindfulness-based art therapy) on cancer patients. Mindfulness-based therapies were found to be superior to control groups in all of the studies. Mindfulness-based therapies reduced psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, anger, and stress, leads post-traumatic growth and improved life quality as well as had positive effects on pain, fatigue, sleep and somatic symptoms in cancer patients.

Keywords

• Mindfulness-based intervention programs
• cancer
• randomized controlled trials