Armaghane Danesh Bimonthly Journal (Jun 2020)
The Effectiveness of Group Behavioral Activation Therapy on Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting in Women with Breast Cancer
Abstract
Background & aim: Nausea and vomiting are among the most common and worrying side effects of treating breast cancer with chemotherapy drugs, which despite the advances in medical science, control of nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy is still challenged. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of group behavioral activation therapy on nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy in women with breast cancer. Methods: The present clinical trial study was a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest and control group. The statistical population were all patients with breast cancer referred to Iranmehr Hospital in Birjand in 2018. Initially, a structured interview was conducted on 60 women with breast cancer referred to the hospital using the available method. At that point, 32 patients were selected by admission and randomly assigned to two groups. Data were collected through demographic questionnaires and nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy (2016). The treatment protocol was based on the group behavioral activation pattern presented to the intervention group in 8 sessions of 120 minutes per week and the control group was placed on a waiting list. The obtained data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance with SPSS-20 software. Results: Mean post-test scores of severity subscales (p<0.05, F=84.148), duration (p<0.05, F=22.174), acute nausea and severity of acute vomiting (p<0.05, F=6.741) in the intervention group was significantly lower than the mean post-test scores of the control group, but no significant difference was obsereved between the mean scores of the post-test subscale of acute vomiting in the intervention and control groups after eliminating the pre-test effect (p= 0.019, p<0.05 and 765). Conclusion: Group behavioral activation therapy significantly reduced the tensity/duration of acute nausea and the intensity of acute vomiting induced chemotherapy in women with breast cancer. Thus, this therapy can be a practical and promising treatment during chemotherapy.
