BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Cancers are a broad group of diseases, each having their own etiology, treatment, and prognosis. The majority of cancer patients experience a period of mental stress during their disease. Given the effective role of life expectancy in dealing with chronic diseases, such as stomach cancer, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of cognitive-behavioral group therapy on increased life expectancy of male patients with gastric cancer.

METHODS: This quasi-experiment was conducted on 92 male patients with gastric cancer referring to Tuba Medical Center, Sari, Iran in 2014. Patients were randomly divided into two groups of test (n=46) and control (n=46). The two groups completed the Adult Hope Scale (AHS) by Snyder in pretest stage. At the next stage, samples of the test group were exposed to 10 sessions of cognitive-behavioral group therapy (each session: 90 min), while the control group did not receive any special treatment. Both study groups completed the questionnaire again at the posttest stage, followed by the comparison of results.

FINDINGS: In terms of life expectancy, mean scores of the test and control groups at the pretest stage were 37.21±4.7 and 36.26±4.73, respectively. Meanwhile, mean scores of the mentioned groups at the posttest stage were 40.02±3.87 and 36.23±4.8, respectively. A significant increase was observed in the mean scores of test and control groups at the posttest stage compared to before the intervention. Moreover, a significant difference was found between the study groups regarding life expectancy and its components (p<0.01).

CONCLUSION: According to the results, cognitive-behavioral group therapy could increase life expectancy in patients with gastric cancer.