Psychoeducation Combined with Benson Relaxation for Fatigue and Emotional Distress in Women Receiving Breast Cancer Chemotherapy

Abstract

Fatigue and emotional distress are frequent concerns during breast cancer chemotherapy. This quasi-experimental pretest–posttest controlled study assessed a combination of psychoeducation and Benson relaxation among 60 women receiving chemotherapy at Sultan Agung Islamic Hospital, Semarang, Indonesia, between January and March 2026. Purposive sampling yielded an intervention group of 30 and a standard-care comparison group of 30, allocated by chemotherapy scheduling rather than randomization. The intervention comprised three episodes of structured education, reinforcement and guided Benson relaxation. Cancer-related fatigue was assessed by the Cancer Fatigue Scale and distress by the QSC-R10 questionnaire. Median fatigue scores declined from 42.50 to 23.00 in the intervention group and from 46.50 to 29.50 in controls. Median emotional-distress scores declined from 36.00 to 16.50 and from 39.50 to 26.50, respectively. The source reported greater score changes in the intervention group than in controls for fatigue and distress (both Mann–Whitney p = 0.001). Although favorable changes occurred in both groups, combined psychoeducation and relaxation was associated with greater improvements. Nonrandom allocation and the lack of isolated intervention arms prevent attribution to either treatment component or strong causal inference.