The effect of psycho-education on anxiety and depression levet at early stage patients

This research was conducted to analyze the effect of psycho-education on anxiety and depression level at early stage cancer patients. The research has been conducted between September 2014 – January 2015. The research has been conducted on the basis of a semi-experimental experiment-control research. The sample group of the research was composed of 100 patients; 50 individuals in the experimental group, 50 individuals in the control group who has received cancer diagnosis, agreed to participate in the study and at least primary school graduated. Each patient in the experimantal group was interviewed individually and received psycho-education in three steps in different times. The data of the research were gathered by a sociodemographic form which is designed by the researcher using the literature to defined the sociodemographic chractheristics of cancer patients, BECK Anxiety Scale, BECK Depression Scale were used and in the psycho-education process booklet of Life With Cancer was used. The data were evaluated using number percentage distirubution, Chi-square, Mann Whitney U, Wilcoxon and Kruskall Wallis tests. The mean age of the patients in this study is 50.68 ± 11.14, the range of age was 21-65 years, the majority was greduated from primary school, woman, married, housewife and not working. When the experimental group and the control group were compared based on socio-demographic data, significant differences were not determined. Before psycho-education process experimental group BECK Anxiety Scale pretest score mean is 17,96±8,68, after the process the posttest score mean is 8,58±5,72, BECK Depression Scale pretest mean is 17,86±8,52, posttest score mean is 9,02±5,01.But in control group, BECK Anxiety Scale pretest score mean is 17,32±4,03, the posttest score mean is 16,56±4,81, BECK Depression Scale pretest mean is 18,14±3,27, posttest score mean is 17,34±3,78. The Anxiety (Z=-2,932, p<0,05) and Depression (Z=-3,236, p<0,05) level after psycho-education process has significant difference in experimental group rather than control group. In light of findings obtained, it was concluded that the application of psycho-education in cancer patients has effect which provides significant difference on anxiety and depression levels. Key Words : cancer, depression, anxiety, psycho-education