The effect of psychoeducation on anxiety and pain in patients with mastalgia

Abstract

Background: Mastalgia is a debilitating disorder, which has serious effects on one's daily life and causes significant medical costs. Aim: Mastalgia patients determine the overall approach and improve the quality of life of patients. Methods: In this study, the outcomes of psychoeducation on anxiety and pain in a group of patients with mastalgia without an organic etiology have been investigated. 88 patients were included in this study. The socio-demographic data form, the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90), the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), the Hamilton Anxiety Scorer (HAM-A), the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-I, STAI-2) and the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) were all applied to the patients. 64 randomly selected patients (Group 1) were given psychoeducation while the remaining 24 (Group 2) were not. All patients were called back after 1 month for repeats of the HAM-A, STAI-I, STAI-2 and VAS tests. Results: The results of this study demonstrated that psychoeducation has positive impacts on the perception of pain besides stationary, contemporary and total anxiety scores. Conclusions: It is concluded that the administration of psychoeducation is a good choice in the degradation of anxiety symptoms and pain.

• Anxiety
• Alexithymia
• Mastalgia
• Pain
• Psychoeducation

Authors’ contributions

Agah Bahadır Öztürk, Yarkın Özenli and Serhat Burkay Öztürk designed the studies and wrote the protocols. Safa Önel and Gökhan Söker undertook the literature searches and statistical analyses. Agah Bahadır Öztürk wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgements

We thank the Adana Numune Training and Research Hospital, Turkey.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest and have not received any payment for the preparation of this manuscript. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.