Background & aim: Colorectal cancer and stoma surgery cause many problems for patients and lead to fundamental changes in life. One of these problems is sexual dissatisfaction, which due to wide-ranging effects on patients' marital lives, requires interventions to improve it. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy enriched with compassion on sexual satisfaction of patients with colorectal cancer after colostomy surgery.
Methods: The research was quasi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test and control group. The study population was patients with colorectal cancer after colostomy surgery that referred to Isfahan Cancer Prevention and Control Center (Ala) in 2018, among them, 32 patients were purposefully selected and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups with 16 people in each group. The Hudson Sexual Satisfaction Questionnaire (1981) was used in the pre-test and post-test groups to measure dependent variable. The experimental group received 10 weekly sessions of acceptance and commitment therapy enriched with compassion. Post-test was performed one week after the sessions. The control group did not receive any treatment. The results were analyzed using SPSS software version 24 and covariance analysis.
Results: Based on descriptive findings, the mean scores of sexual satisfaction in the experimental group increased in post-test (M=122.21), compared to pre-test (M=100.85), while the sexual satisfaction scores in the control group was relatively constant in the pre-test (M=100.50) and post-test (M=100.78) groups. According to the results of analysis of covariance, acceptance and commitment therapy enriched with compassion has led to a significant increase in sexual satisfaction scores of patients in experimental group (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Based on the results, it seems that treatment based on acceptance and commitment therapy enriched with compassion can be used to improve symptoms associated with sexual satisfaction in patients with colorectal cancer after colostomy surgery.