Dados do Resumo

Título

Self-awareness for Promoting Quality of Life in Women with Breast Cancer

Introdução

The psychosocial impact of treatment, suffered by women with breast cancer, causes a deconstruction of self-image in the pillars of well-being (physical, relationships or career) and reduces hope of regaining life as it used to be before treatment. At AC Camargo Cancer Center, we have created a training program based on positive psychology and coaching for patients, called SUPERAÇÃO (“Overcome”, in English), to provide tools for coping, considering patient-centered treatment.

Objetivo

To present an initial snapshot of the experience of coaching sessions using positive psychology in terms of their impact on quality of life, and the ability to improving life choices of women with breast cancer treated at the AC Camargo Cancer Center/ACCCC and the Perola Oncology Research Center/PCPO.

Métodos

The program uses the acronym “SUPERAR” in Portuguese/“Overcome” in English: S = Human Being/Dreams, U = Union/Self-Direction, P = Prevention/Planning, E = Energy/Positive Emotions, R = Relationships, A = Autonomy for Problem Solving and R = Emotional and Cognitive Reframing. In this section, we will focus on the “S” of Being Human and Dreams. The program has been running at the ACCCC since 2022 and was implemented in 2024 at the PCPO. To promote self-knowledge in the behavioral, motivational and personal strengths dimensions, the following scales (Likert-type) were used: the VIA Assessment (Character Strengths), DISC Behavioral and Motivational Profile, Boyatzis & E. Richard's “Ideal Self”. The program had a hybrid format, lasting 4 weeks, including 4 synchronous online interventions of 2 hours each, carried out on its own platform, as well as individual coaching sessions. The consolidated indicators presented refer to the grouped and anonymized data of 54 participants, from class 2024.

Resultados

Domain “S” worked on self-knowledge and expanding perspectives, teaching effective tools for overcoming the challenges triggered by the side effects of treatment to strengthen the Emotional Health. After the mentoring, we assessed the women's perception of how much they felt they had improved on the items assessed by the scales: Behavioral self-identification 93%; Perception of social integration 88%; Emotional awareness 89%; Self-management 86%; Motivational awareness 91%; Perception of better choices 90%; Self-confidence 94%; Responsibility for happiness and health 94%; Healthy behavior 93%; Personal empowerment 94%. In fact, in the context of treatment for cancer and other illnesses, interventions based on the concepts of Positive Psychology, with activities involving support groups, have shown significant results in terms of promoting new behaviors and expressive subjective perceptions.

Conclusões

The self-awareness promotion program as a catalyst for making better choices following a breast cancer diagnosis demonstrated improvements across all analyzed topics, providing a repertoire that empowers patients to make better choices in their future reintegration into social life.

Palavras Chave

Breast cancer; quality of life; positive psychology