Recover your smile: Effects of a beauty care intervention on depressive symptoms, quality of life, and self‐esteem in patients with early breast cancer

Abstract

Objective Medical cancer treatment is often accompanied by appearance‐related side effects such as hair loss, skin irritation, and paleness, which can subsequently lead to psychosocial distress. Initial evidence suggests that beauty care interventions may reduce distress and improve quality of life (QoL), body image, and self‐esteem immediately. Methods We investigated the effects of a brief beauty care intervention on self‐reported symptoms of depression, quality of life, body image, and self‐esteem in 39 female primary breast cancer patients with appearance‐related treatment side effects. Patients were randomly assigned either to an immediate intervention group (IG) or to a wait‐list control (WL). The intervention consisted of a single‐session group makeup workshop, a photo shooting, and of receiving professionally edited portrait and upper‐body photos. Results While groups did not differ regarding any measure at the pretreatment baseline assessment, IG patients reported less symptoms of depression, higher QoL, and higher self‐esteem compared with baseline and compared with WL. Follow‐up at 8 weeks indicated moderate stability of these improvements. Conclusions In contrast to previous research, results indicate beneficial short‐term and midterm effects of beauty care on psychological outcomes in patients with early breast cancer. These results emphasize the utility of this type of brief, low‐cost intervention in women undergoing medical cancer treatment in order to improve their well‐being.

Enhancing Self-Esteem and Body Image of Breast Cancer Women through Interventions: A Systematic Review

“…Articles were published from 1999 to 2019 in a variety of scientific journals with different aims and scopes: Archives of General Psychiatry [ 74 ], Body Image [ 75 ], Psicooncología [ 76 ], European Journal of Cancer Care [ 77 ], Psycho-Oncology [ 78 ], The Arts in Psychotherapy [ 9 ], Clinical and Health [ 19 ], and Revista Brasileira de Medicina do Esporte [ 35 ]. Studies involved participants from Brazil [ 35 ], the United States of America [ 9 , 74 ], the United Kingdom [ 75 ], Spain [ 19 , 76 ], South Korea [ 77 ], and Austria [ 78 ]. All the records were written in English except one that was in Spanish but had its abstract in English [ 76 ].…”

“…Half of the studies were Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT), two of them with pre-/post-design [ 9 , 76 ], and two with pre-/post- and follow-up design [ 74 , 78 ]. Three of the studies were Non-Randomized Controlled Trials with pre-/post- design [ 35 ], and with pre-/post- and follow-up design [ 19 , 77 ].…”

“…Study 6 [ 77 ] was performed with 60 patients who composed an IG ( n = 31) and a CG ( n = 29). Study 7 [ 78 ] had 44 BC patients allocated to either IG ( n = 22) or CG ( n = 22). Finally, Study 8 [ 19 ] included a total of 188 women divided into a CG ( n = 81) and an IG ( n = 107).…”

A New Framework for Narcissism in Health Psychology and Psycho-Oncology

“…For instance, wearing a wig is considered crucial to identity restoration following cancer treatment (Zannini et al, 2012). In addition, photo shooting allows participants to visualize the bodily appearance effects of the beauty care intervention for a second time and to share professionally edited photos, thereby likely fostering increases in self-esteem (Richard et al, 2019).…”

“…A growing number of studies investigated the efficacy of these programs on women's well-being, both by means of qualitative (Amiel et al, 2009;Zannini et al, 2012) and quantitative data (e.g., Titeca et al, 2007;Quintard and Lakdja, 2008;Park et al, 2015;Richard et al, 2019). The literature indicates that participating in aesthetic care programs could determine an improvement in body image, anxiety, self-esteem, and the quality of social interactions (Quintard and Lakdja, 2008;Richard et al, 2019), thus facilitating a better adjustment to the disease.…”