diurnal salivary cortisol following mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (mbct) in women with breast cancer: a pilot study

Background and objectives: cancer and its conventional treatments may bring about some psychological and health-related symptoms leading to unstable cortisol level. since evidence has shown that mindfulness based approaches can be helpful to reduce cortisol level, we aimed at investigating the efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (mbct) on decreasing salivary cortisol level in the women with breast cancer. methods: in this one- group pretest posttest study, the women with early stage breast cancer were assessed to select eligible ones (n = 15). they were first trained for collecting salivary cortisol sample (before, after and follow-up) and then were asked to participate in mbct, an eight-week session approach. participants provided salivary samples in the morning (7: 30- 8:30), afternoon (1-3) and night (9-11). to measure cortisol, cortisol enzyme immunoassay kit was used. analysis was performed on the data of 12 participants remained, using repeated measurement. results: the results of repeated measure anova revealed that cortisol level of posttest (after 8-weeks of mbct and follow-up period) in comparison with pretest was significantly reduced for morning and afternoon cortisol while it was not true for night cortisol. the post-treatment cortisol was not significantly correlated with age groups, education levels and socio-economic status using repeated measure ancova. conclusion: given that the women with breast cancer are at the high risk of psychological distresses and unstable cortisol level, we recommend mindfulness-based approaches esp. mbct to health providers specifically those working with breast cancer patients.