Background:
A Hong Kong’s study showed that the prevalence of mood disorder among cancer patients was 1.5 times higher than that of the general public (Hong Kong Cancer Fund, 2005). So a psychological group using Somatic Experiencing approach to manage anxiety and depression for cancer patients has been implemented since 2010. Somatic Experiencing (Levin, 1997) is an approach that facilitates the participants to use their own body sensation and instinct ability to restore to normal from the overwhelming experience. The present study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the psychological group using Somatic Experiencing approach in reducing anxiety and distress measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scales (HADS) and the General Health Questionnaires (GHQ12).
Method:
From 2010 to 2012, the groups of handling negative emotion by somatic work were conducted. The participants were invited to fill in the GHQ12 questionnaire for measuring the distress level and the HADS questionnaires to measure the anxiety and depression level before and after the group. Basic demographic characteristics and disease history were collected simultaneously. The data was transformed into SPSS and the variables were labeled and evaluated. 37 subjects were measured and paired T test was employed in analyzing the pre and post-test data.
Results:
The findings showed that there was a significant decrease of distress, anxiety and depression level of the participants after joining the group (GHQ12: mean -7.324, p=.000; HADS: mean -3.270, p=.001; HADS-A: mean -1.757, p=.001; HADS-D: mean -1.784, p=.000).
Conclusion:
The participants had a significant decrease of distress, anxiety and depression level after joining the group. In order to prove if body work can really help to regulate the negative emotion, a randomized controlled trial will be conducted in next stage. Video clips and contents of the group will be shown during the presentation.