Fear-focused Self-Compassion Therapy for Young Breast Cancer Patients' Fear of Cancer Recurrence

Self-compassion

Self-compassion will be measured by using the 12-item Self-compassion Scale-Short Form (SCS-SF) consisting of six facets: self-kindness (2 items), self-judgement (2 items), common humanity (2 items), isolation (2 items), mindfulness (2 items) and over-identification (2 items) . Responses were rated on a five-point scale from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always).

Time frame: Baseline, immediately completing intervention, baseline to 3 months, baseline to 6 months, baseline to 12 months.

Salivary alpha amylase

The salivary alpha amylase activity will be measured by using a hand-held salivary alpha amylase monitor manufactured by Nipro (Osaka, Japan). This analyzer can automatically measure the salivary alpha amylase activity within one minute (about 30 seconds for saliva collection and 30 seconds for analyzing). Participants will be asked to brush teeth before measurement and not allowed to intake any food, beverage, tobacco or liquor within an hour.

Time frame: Baseline and immediately completing intervention

Heart rate variability (HRV)

The HRV will be measured by using signal detection and amplification system (Biopac ECG100C) of MP150-Biopac data acquisition system. The CardioBatch will be used to compute the HRV. Participants will be asked not to intake any stimulant (e.g., caffein, alcohol), or cannot do any strenuous activity within four hours before measurement.

Time frame: Baseline and immediately completing intervention

Attentional bias for FCR

Attentional bias for FCR will be assessed by conducting the dot-probe task, including 200 trials with the stimuli of cancer-related words and utilized in previous study. The dot-probe task will be presented on a laptop computer and run by using Matlab. At the beginning of each trial, a "+" will present for 500 milliseconds in the center of the screen. After that, a pair of word stimuli with a neutral word (e.g., apple) and a cancer-related word (e.g., chemotherapy) will be presented for 500 milliseconds on the left and right sides of screen. Then, the probe stimuli will be presented at the position where the word stimuli just appear. Once the probe stimuli appear, participants should press button of the keyboard as soon as possible. After that, the screen will present 500 milliseconds of blanking, and the next trial will start.