Published Paper Details:

Cancer is not just one disease, but a group of more than hundred diseases in which a group of cells become abnormal, divide without control and invade other tissues. Cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body through the blood circulation or lymph system. The body is made up of many types of cells which are basic units of life and these cells grow and divide in a controlled way to keep the body healthy. When cells become old or damaged, they die and are replaced with new cells in a programmed way; this process is called apoptosis. However, sometimes this programmed process goes wrong. The genetic material (DNA) of a cell regulates the normal cell growth and division. If DNA becomes damaged or changed, producing mutations, cells do not die and cells keep dividing when the body does not need them, these extra cells form a mass of tissue which is called a tumour. Tumours are of two types; one is benign tumour, another one is malignant tumour. Benign tumours are not cancerous; they do not spread to other parts of the body but malignant tumours are cancerous, cells in these tumours can spread to other parts of the body (metastasis) cancer council. Clinicians working with patients with chronic cancer-related pain are familiar with the experience of pain having both somatic sensory and psychological components. With adequate pain management, we often see a lessening of anxiety and a return to emotional equilibrium, which allows patients to process the loss inherent in the cancer experience. But in some of our patients we see persistence of psychological suffering and of a maladaptive anxious response that interrupts this processing and worsens outcome. While most anxiety develops after the onset of cancer, a smaller subset of patients with anxiety represent those with pre-existing conditions. In the present study, the aim was to determine the effectiveness of mindfulness based cognitive therapy along with standard care on cancer patients. Total number of participants were 10, 5 each in the respective group (experimental group i.e. MBCT with standard care and control group i.e. only standard). The information regarding their age, gender, education, socioeconomic status, marital status, stage of illness and amount of physical activity was collected. The 2 groups pre-test post-test design was used for the present study. This design indicates one group was tested before and after being exposed to a treatment or intervention while another group was tested at the same two times but was not exposed to any treatment. The test results showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the post test scores of the experimental group and control group on all the variables employed in the study. Thus, the hypothesis stating that the post-test scores of the experimental group will be higher than the pre test scores was supported.