The effect of awareness-based stress reduction program applied to breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy on symptom management, psychological resilience and quality of life

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction program on symptom management, resilience, and quality of life in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The research was conducted as a randomized experimental study with a pre-test, interim test and post-test control group. Research data were collected from 60 patients who met the research criteria and gave their consent and came to the Oncology Day Treatment Unit of Fırat University Training and Research Hospital to receive chemotherapy between June 2023 and July 2024. The intervention group was given a mindfulness-based stress reduction program in 45-minute face-to-face meetings once a week for eight weeks. No intervention was applied to the patients in the control group. After the eight weeks, an interim test was applied to both the intervention and control groups. After the interim test, the patients in the intervention group were called by phone to remind them of the application days so that they could repeat these applications at home once a week for eight weeks. A post-test was applied to both groups at the end of the 16th week. "Patient Information Form", "Edmonton Symptom Identification Scale", "Brief Resilience Scale (BRS)", "EORTC QLQ-C30 Quality of Life Questionnaire" were used to collect the data. In the analysis of the data; mean scores and standard deviation values, Pearson chi-square analysis, independent groups t-test, ANOVA test for repeated measures were used. In the study, it was determined that the total mean scores of the patients in the intervention group and the mean scores of the EORTC QLQ-C30 Symptoms sub-dimension decreased statistically significantly after the application compared to the patients in the control group (p<0.05), while there was a significant increase in the total mean scores of the BRS and the EORTC QLQ-C30 General Well-being sub-dimension and EORTC QLQ-C30 Functional sub-dimension mean scores (p<0.05). In conclusion, it was determined that the mindfulness-based stress reduction program had a positive effect on symptom management, resilience, and quality of life in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. In line with these results, it is recommended for nurses to implement mindfulness-based stress reduction program in breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.