Hope and mood improvement in women with breast cancer using group poetry therapy: a questionnaire-based before-after study

Effect of Masnavi-based Poetry Therapy on Anxiety, Depression and Stress of Women with Breast Cancer

Background: Breast cancer patients’ psychological problems affect different aspects of their life, such as quality of life and response to treatments. Objectives: This research aimed to study the effectiveness of Masnavi-based poetry therapy on anxiety, depression, and stress in patients with breast cancer. Methods: The study was conducted on 91 patients with breast cancer. They were divided into the poetry therapy group (n = 31) and no intervention as the control group (n = 60). The intervention group attended six sessions of weekly Masnavi-based poetry therapy. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 Items (DASS-21) questionnaires were completed by patients before, one week, and two months after the intervention. Results: Depression, anxiety, and stress were not significantly different between the two groups at the baseline. Poetry therapy decreases anxiety, depression, and stress of patients based on DASS-21 after one week and eight weeks in the intervention group (P = 0.006, P = 0.001, P = 0.01, respectively). One week after the intervention, the scores for depression, anxiety, and stress were significantly lower in the poetry therapy group than those in the control group (P = 0.02, P = 0.01, P = 0.03, respectively). All depression, anxiety, and stress presentations were significantly improved in the poetry therapy group in comparison to the control group at the end of week eight (P = 0.01, P = 0.03, P = 0.02, respectively). Conclusions: Group poetry therapy as useful psychotherapy could decrease anxiety and depression in women with breast cancer.

Quantitative methods for group bibliotherapy research: a pilot study

Background: Bibliotherapy is under-theorized and under-tested: its purposes and implementations vary widely, and the idea that 'reading is good for you' is often more assumed than demonstrated. One obstacle to developing robust empirical and theoretical foundations for bibliotherapy is the continued absence of analytical methods capable of providing sensitive yet replicable insights into complex textual material. This pilot study offers a proof-of-concept for new quantitative methods including VAD (valence-arousal-dominance) modelling of emotional variance and doc2vec modelling of linguistic similarity. Methods: VAD and doc2vec modelling were used to analyse transcripts of reading-group discussions plus the literary texts being discussed, from two reading groups each meeting weekly for six weeks (including 9 participants [5 researchers (3 authors, 2 collaborators), 4 others] in Group 1, and 8 participants [2 authors, 6 others] in Group 2). Results: We found that text-discussion similarity was inversely correlated with emotional volatility in the group discussions (arousal: r = -0.25; p = ns; dominance: r = 0.21; p = ns; valence: r = -0.28; p = ns), and that enjoyment or otherwise of the texts and the discussion was less significant than other factors in shaping the perceived significance and potential benefits of participation. That is, texts with unpleasant or disturbing content that strongly shaped subsequent discussions of these texts were still able to sponsor 'healthy' discussions of this content, as evidenced by the combination of low arousal plus high dominance despite low valence in the emotional qualities of the discussion. Conclusions: Our methods and findings offer for the field of bibliotherapy research both new possibilities for hypotheses to test, and viable ways of testing them. In particular, the use of natural language processing methods and word norm data offer valuable complements to intuitive human judgement and self-report when assessing the impact of literary materials.

Memes and Poetry: A Descriptive Analysis on Creative Arts Therapy to Reduce Health Care Worker Burnout

BACKGROUND

Health care workers (HCWs) face high levels of burnout, which can lead to workforce turnover and poor patient outcomes. Health care leaders should identify strategies to improve staff resilience.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to describe HCWs' perspective on using creative arts therapy to reduce burnout and improve resiliency.

METHODS

During Infection Prevention week, staff were encouraged to submit and vote on educational memes and haikus. Staff were asked their perspectives on how this activity could be used to reduce burnout and improve resiliency using a 4-point Likert scale.

RESULTS

Twenty-two staff members submitted 26 memes and 27 haikus. Staff felt this activity could be an effective strategy to help reduce burnout and improve resiliency.

CONCLUSIONS

Further research is warranted to better understand the correlation between this form of art therapy and burnout and resiliency; however, health care leaders may consider using this as a tool for staff well-being.

Hope in Advanced Cancer Patients in the Terminal Phase of Neoplastic Disease and Stability of Basic Mood

The aim of this research is to compare the hope experienced by advanced cancer patients in the terminal phase of neoplastic disease in relation to the stability of their basic mood. The study group consisted of 246 patients, average age 59.5. The youngest respondent was 18 and the oldest was 90. The diagnostic tools used in the work comprised the Personal Card designed by T. Witkowski (PC) and an NCN-36 test (Block's Hope test), designed by B.L. Block to measure the strength of hope in people struggling with serious life-threatening diseases. The test consists of 4 subscales distinguished by factor analysis. Each subscale consists of 8 items. The test allows an evaluation of hope in the following dimensions: situational dimension (health, thelic-temporal dimension), goals to be achieved in the future, spiritual dimension (spirituality), religious beliefs, and emotional-motivational (affective) dimension (motivations). In cheerful patients who are in the terminal phase of cancer, mood stability does not constitute a major differentiating factor for experiencing hope. In sad people, on the other hand, mood stability affects the intensity of hope-those with an unstable mood are more likely to have a stronger emotional-motivational dimension of hope than sad people with a balanced mood.

Hope in Hospitalized Patients with Terminal Cancer

Hope is of great importance for patients diagnosed with cancer, especially those that are terminally ill. The diagnosis often puts an end to the realization of personal, social, and professional goals. The aim of this study was to characterize the hope of hospitalized patients diagnosed with cancer in the terminal phase of the disease. The research tool used in the study was Block’s hope test (NCN-36; NCN- Nadzieja Chorych Nowotworowych—Hope of Cancer Patients), designed for patients with life-threatening diseases. The results showed that the patients were characterized by a moderate level of global hope. The highest levels of hope were noted in the spiritual-religious area and the lowest levels of hope concerned curing the disease. Patients exhibited varied levels of hope and varied internal structures of hope. They presented four different types of hope: optimistic, moderate, religious, and weak. Optimistic hope was found most frequently in patients diagnosed with a terminal phase of cancer, while weak hope was represented by the smallest group of these patients.