Psychosocial benefits of a novel mindfulness intervention versus standard support in distressed women with breast cancer

Abstract

In conclusion, MBAT is associated with significant, sustained benefits across a diverse range of breast cancer patients, particularly those with high stress levels.

Clinical and psychological moderators of the effect of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on persistent pain in women treated for primary breast cancer – explorative analyses from a randomized controlled trial

“…As mindfulness, defined as bringing attention to the experience that unfolds moment-by-moment in a non-judgmental way [8] and psychological distress have been negatively associated [9], it could be hypothesized that initial distress levels may influence the susceptibility for symptom improvement during MBI. A number of studies have investigated the possible moderating role of baseline psychological distress on the effect of MBI on various outcomes in breast cancer patients [7,[10][11][12]. The reported results vary, with two of the studies showing that higher baseline distress predicted greater reductions in psychological symptoms [12], fear of recurrence, and fatigue [10].…”

“…We did not find statistically significant interaction effects for the remaining proposed psychological moderators, namely baseline psychological distress and alexithymia, suggesting that initial psychological distress levels and alexithymia do not influence the effect of MBCT on pain intensity. With respect to baseline psychological distress, the existing studies report mixed results [7,[10][11][12], with the comparison of study results being further complicated by the many different (non-pain) outcomes used in the available studies, as the moderating role of psychological distress may vary across outcomes. Regarding alexithymia, ours is the first study to explore alexithymia as a possible moderator of MBI and the results should therefore be considered preliminary.…”

“…The reported results vary, with two of the studies showing that higher baseline distress predicted greater reductions in psychological symptoms [12], fear of recurrence, and fatigue [10]. In contrast, no statistically significant moderation effects were found for somatic symptoms [7] or general health [11]. None of the available studies had specifically included pain as their primary outcome measure.…”

Mental health as a clinical hallmark of cancer

“…Other studies have confirmed that further to extreme anger, suppression, repression or restraint of anger are emotions generally exhibited by breast cancer patients [2]. Epidemiological studies have reported that participation in psychological support groups is associated with better health outcomes for these patients, calling for an integration of such a modality in cancer management and treatment [3]. With such a consistent evidence pointing to a link between emotional distress and chronic disease, the question asked is whether suppressed anger could also be identified as an indicative factor in the progression of the disease after diagnosis.…”

Estrategias no farmacológicas en el paciente clínicamente enfermo, ¿qué nos dice la literatura?

“…En los artículos seleccionados se halló el mindfulness con aplicación a la patología oncológica [7,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63], así como su uso en otras patologías crónicas [4,18,64,65]. Se ha demostrado su efecto fisiológico en la reducción de marcadores de ansiedad, como la respuesta humana al cortisol [66,67].…”