The Effect of Relaxation and Mental Imagery and Relaxation Therapy on Anxiety and Hopefulness in Women with Breast Cancer in Ahvaz

ABSTRACT: Psychological factors have important role in etiology and treatment the cancer. The aim of this research was study the effect of mental imagery and relaxation training on anxiety and hopelessness in women suffering from breast cancer. The research method was experimental with pre-posttest, follow up and control group. The sample consisted of 30 women suffering from breast cancer who were selected based on age, educational status, duration of disease, acquiring one standard deviation above the mean in anxiety test and other criteria considered in this research. Then randomly divided into two groups as experimental and control. The instruments were Cattel Anxiety Questionnaire (CAQ) and Miller Hopefulness Scale (MHS). The experimental group administered 12 sessions of mental imagery and relaxation training but the control group didn't receive any intervention. The data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The results indicated that there was a significant difference between experimental and control group (p≤0.0001).The rate of anxiety in experimental group in compare with pre-test and control group decreased but the rate of hopefulness increased. Also, these results significantly persisted after follow up perio