The Effect of Positive Thinking on Quality of Life and Resiliency of Cancer Patients

Background: Every individual’s quality of life, well-being and mental health are certainly influenced by physical and psychologicalaspects. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of training positive thinking on quality of life and resiliency in femalecancer patients hospitalized in Mashhad Omid hospital. Patients and Methods: This study was an interventional and experimental trial, including pre-and post-test. The target population in thisstudy includes all female cancer patients, monthly 500 patients, hospitalized as outpatient (for a day) or inpatient (more than a week) inOmid hospital, Mashhad. Simple random sampling was used in this study. From the invited subjects, 55 patients accepted to participatein the classes. Using random number table, 30 subjects (15 patients as experimental group, and 15 as control group) were selected. Theintervention was performed through eight sessions of one and a half to two hours, and continued for three weeks. After finishing positivethinking sessions, the post-test was conducted for both the experimental group who received intervention and control group who didnot receive intervention. Two questionnaires including Conner-Davison resilience scale, 2003, and quality of life (SF-36) along with theprimary questions about the individual characteristics were used to collect the required data. Results: To analyze the data, t-test and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used. The result of this study showed that the positive thinkingtraining course has a significant effect on resiliency (P = 0.00) and quality of life in cancer patients and changes are statistically significant(P = 0.00). These changes are the result of the effect of the independent variable. Conclusions: The overall results of this study reveal that positive thinking training courses can be used to increase the quality of life andresiliency of cancer patients.