title: A palliative care intervention in forgiveness therapy for elderly terminally ill cancer patients.
abstract: Palliative care is now considered an essential part of end-of-life care, yet little research examines the efficacy of interventions addressing the psychological treatment of dying patients. Forgiveness therapy has been shown to be effective in improving psychological well-being and may provide a valuable addition to a terminal cancer patient's overall treatment plan. This study experimentally tested the effectiveness of a four-week forgiveness therapy in improving the quality of life of elderly terminally ill cancer patients. Participants (n = 20) were randomly assigned to a forgiveness therapy group or to a wait-list control group, which received forgiveness therapy in the second four-week period. All participants completed instruments measuring forgiveness, hope, quality of life, and anger at pre-test, post-test 1, and post-test 2. The forgiveness therapy group showed greater improvement than the control group, with one-tailed t-tests, on all measures. After receiving forgiveness therapy, participants in both forgiveness treatment conditions demonstrated significant improvements on all measures. The aggregated effect size was large. The four-week forgiveness therapy demonstrated psychological benefits for elderly terminally ill cancer patients and thus may be an appropriate addition to the treatment plan for terminal cancer patients.
authors.affiliation: Meriter Health Services Incorporated, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
authors.forename: Mary J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.forename: Robert D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Enright
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Baskin
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Klatt
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000786:Anger; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D016555:Matched-Pair Analysis; D008875:Middle Aged; D010166:Palliative Care; D011613:Psychotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life; D019452:Terminally Ill / Q000523:psychology*