Effect of Spiritual-Religious Intervention on Illness Perception in Women with Breast Cancer

Background and Objectives: Due to the high prevalence of breast cancer, as well as the improved survival of the patients affected with this disease, management and adaptation to this disease are very important. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of spiritual/religious intervention on the illness perception of women with breast cancer. Methods: This clinical trial was conducted on 45 women with breast cancer using a pretest-posttest design. The participants were divided into three groups of intervention (n=15), placebo (n=15), and control (n=15). The intervention group received ten sessions of spiritual/religious intervention and the placebo group received ten sessions of neutral training. However, the control group received no intervention. The data were collected using a questionnaire of illness perception and a demographic characteristics form filled out before and after the intervention. The data were analyzed by repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance in the SPSS software, version 24. Results: According to the results, the intervention group showed a significant difference with the control and placebo groups in terms of timeline acute/chronic, consequences, personal control, treatment control, timeline cyclical, coherence, and emotional representations of illness perception (eta2=0.28, p<0.05). Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, individual spiritual religious intervention based on Islam was effective in improving the illness perception among women with breast cancer in Iran.