The Effect of Spiritual Group Therapy on Depression, Anxiety and Stress of Family Caregivers of Children With Cancer

Objective: Caring for a child with cancer has many tensions that can lead to deep emotional and emotional problems such as stress, anxiety and depression in his family caregivers. This study examined the effectiveness of spiritual group therapy of depression, anxiety and stress of caregivers of children with cancer. Methods: The present study was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test design in two intervention and control groups. After obtaining informed written consent was performed on 24 pediatric caregivers in two groups of experimental and control in Ardebil’s association of children with cancer. The experimental group participated in 8 sessions of spiritual group therapy. Depression, anxiety and stress were evaluated before and after intervention using the standard Depression-Anxiety-Stress Scale. Data were analyzed using Chi-square, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, independent t-test , paired t-test, Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon using  SPSS software version 25.  Results: mean age of family caregivers in the experimental and control group was 39.08 ± 8.56 and 38.09± 9.76 respectively. The results of this study showed that intervention of group spiritual therapy was significantly effective in decreasing depression (p =0.001), stress (p =0.001) and anxiety (p =0.001) in caregivers of children with cancer in experimental group. Conclusion: It seems that the implementation of spiritual group therapy program meant stress, anxiety and depression of family caregivers, so the development of such programs can be an effective step to alleviate the psychological problems of caregivers of children with cancer and subsequently, maintain and improve the quality of care provided by them to the family's Patient member.