Supportive Approaches to Stress Management in Patients With Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review

Background: Stress is a reaction to physical, psychological, and emotionalevents. Compared with other chronic diseases, breast cancer (BC) is a dire stressfulsituation greatly disheartening the patients. Therefore, patients with BC need longlastingphysical and emotional support to cope with stress. The purpose of thisstudy was to systematically review the studies using supportive stress managementinterventions in patients with BC. Methods: A literature search was performed in scientific databases includingGoogle Scholar, Scientific Information Database, Magiran, Irandoc, Web ofScience, Science Direct, PubMed [including Medline], and Elsevier. Thekeywords were retrieved from Medical Subject Headings (Mesh). The articlespublished from ۱۹۹۷ to ۲۰۱۷ were included. Database search returned ۴۴۰ records.Title and abstract screening identified ۱۵۲ potentially eligible articles. Finally, ۱۸articles were included in the synthesis of the review. Results: All the included studies had an interventional design focusing on stressmanagement approaches and their related covariates in women with BC. Thefindings were assessed regarding two distinct approaches. First, the studiesassessing stress management interventions were scrutinized. Next, the impact ofintervention duration, the number of the participants, and the contents of sessionswere explored. Of the selected articles, ۶ had used a mindfulness-based approach,۲ had utilized relaxation techniques, and ۷ had employed stress-related cognitivebehavioraltherapy. In addition, one study was related to resilience training and ۲studies investigated problem-based approaches.Conclusion: Stress management interventions can be helpful in reducing stressin BC patients. Therefore, it is advisable to incorporate stress managementstrategies along with routine pharmaceutical therapies in these patients.

کلیدواژه ها:

Supportive program ، breast cancer ، stress management ، relaxation ، cognitive-behavioral therapy ، mindfulness