Background & Aims: Today, cancer is considered one of the most important health problems around the world and its prevalence is growing in industrialized countries. If the prevalence of cancer increases in this way, according to the United Nations estimate, 1 out of 5 people will definitely get one of the forms of cancer. Cancer is the second cause of death in the world after cardiovascular diseases (1). Cancer has gained great importance among chronic childhood diseases; Because the rate of prevalence is high and it has a great impact on the life of the child and the family. Also, the damage to cancer patients is summarized in two dimensions: the physical dimension and the psychological dimension, which researchers have less focused on the psychological dimension of this disease, while this dimension leads to the deterioration of the weak body of the patients. The emotional and psychological effects that a child's cancer leaves in the family are sometimes more debilitating than the physical nature of the disease (2). This group of children is highly exposed to emotional disorders (3). One of the stressful aspects of cancer for affected children is that they lose their body image and attractiveness, or a deformity in their body image may have adverse effects on their lives (4). Teaching spiritual intelligence and therapy based on acceptance-commitment have beneficial effects on the education and social life of children with cancer and this point has been confirmed in various researches, but with the investigations carried out to determine the effectiveness of these skills on the body image of children with cancer Cancer has not been researched; Therefore, ignoring the effect of teaching these skills on the research variables can be a gap in the research literature.Therefore, the current research was conducted with the aim of comparing the effectiveness of acceptance-commitment therapy and spiritual intelligence training on the body image of children with cancer.
Methods: The research method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with two experimental groups and a control group and a one-month follow-up, and its statistical population consisted of children with cancer who were hospitalized in the pediatric department of Tehran medical centers in 1402. who were in the age range of 9-13 years. Among these people, 30 people were randomly selected and randomly divided into three groups (20 people in two experimental groups, 10 people in the control group). To collect data, the body image questionnaire of Littleton, Aksam and Puri (2005) was used. The method of collecting information was that he first went to the children's department of the medical centers in Tehran and after making the necessary arrangements with the department, which according to the staff report and weekly admission statistics, approximately 150 children were admitted to the families of the children. And among about 65 people who were willing to cooperate, about 30 children aged 9-13 with cancer (which included the criteria for entering the research) who were hospitalized were selected by available sampling method and randomly selected in We made two experimental groups and a control group, in which 10 people were assigned to each group. And the implementation method is that after selecting the subjects and replacing them in two experimental groups and a control group and performing the pre-test, experimental group 1, during one period, for 8 sessions, two sessions a week and each session to 45 minutes exposed to the independent variable (commitment and acceptance-based therapy group training) and experimental group 2, during one period, for 8 sessions, two sessions a week and each session for 45 minutes exposed to the independent variable (spiritual intelligence group training) were placed. To analyze the data, within-group analysis of variance with repeated measurements and block multivariate analysis of variance were performed.
Results: The mean and standard deviation of the age of the participants in the treatment based on acceptance and commitment were 10.90 and 1.19, respectively, in the spiritual intelligence training group, 10.40 and 0.84, and in the control group, 10.80 and 1.22. The mean and standard deviation of the history of disorders in the participants in acceptance and commitment-based therapy were 13.80 and 5.01, respectively, and in the spiritual intelligence training group, 16.10 and 4.99, and in the control group, 16.80 and 5.22. The results of the present study showed that acceptance-commitment-based therapy and spiritual intelligence training have an effect on the body image of children with cancer, and there is no difference between the effectiveness of acceptance-commitment-based therapy and spiritual intelligence training on the body image of children with cancer.
Conclusion: Considering the positive effect of treatment based on acceptance-commitment and spiritual intelligence training, it is suggested to use these two treatments to reduce the problems of children with cancer. According to the results of the research, it seems that in acceptance-commitment-based therapy, a person with a negative body image becomes psychologically aware of the values identified during the treatment, including his physical condition, and through reducing rumination, increasing acceptance, reducing cognitive and emotional dysfunction can affect the improvement of your body image. Also, in the training of spiritual intelligence, in addition to flexibility, this type of treatment increases self-awareness and a deeper look at life; As a result, people consider goals beyond the material world for themselves, which reduces personal dissatisfaction and concern about body image. This important thing can help children with cancer to reduce dissatisfaction with their body image by increasing their spiritual intelligence and instead of focusing on physical dimensions and body image, they can pay attention to other transcendental aspects of their existence. Therefore, treatment based on acceptance-commitment and spiritual intelligence is effective in reducing psychological symptoms caused by cancer in affected children. It is suggested that counseling centers, psychotherapy and hospitals use affordable and available group treatments such as third wave treatments in order to improve the psychological functions of cancer patients as much as possible. Therefore, the acceptance-commitment approach and spiritual intelligence can be used as a suitable intervention in order to improve the ability of patients to adapt to the cancer crisis and reduce the psychological complications caused by it.