Effectiveness of a nurse-led Mindfulness-based Tai Chi Chuan (MTCC) program on Posttraumatic Growth and perceived stress and anxiety of breast cancer survivors

Background With the development of positive psychology, posttraumatic growth research on cancer patients has attracted increasing attention from researchers. It is immensely important to effectively increase the posttraumatic growth level of cancer patients and improve their quality of life. Objectives To investigate the effectiveness of a nurse-led mindfulness-based Tai Chi Chuan (MTCC) programme for increasing posttraumatic growth (PTG) and decreasing the perceived stress and anxiety of breast cancer survivors. Methods A RCT was conducted. Participants were randomly assigned to either the MTCC group or the control group. The programme included 59 women with stage I-III breast cancer. Participants in the intervention group participated in a nurse-led 8-week, twice a week, one-hour per day mindfulness-based exercise programme. The effectiveness of the intervention was measured three times (T1 - before intervention; T2 - after intervention; T3 - one year after intervention) using validated scales, including the PTG inventory (PTGI), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS). A repeated-measure analysis of variance model was used to analyse the data. Results Compared with the wait-list control group, the PTG level in the MTCC group was much higher after the 8-week intervention and the follow-up (F = 374.98, P < .000). The results showed that MTCC increased the level of PTG, and the effect persisted 1 year after intervention. In addition, PSS (F = 55.22, P < .000) and SAS (F = 148.92, P < .000) scores were significantly decreased at T2 and T3. Conclusion The research preliminarily revealed that the MTCC programme was simple, effective, and more suitable to clinical nurses which should be recommended to cancer survivors to promote their recovery.