Background:
Adolescents and Young Adults (AYAs) with cancer are at risk for poor psychosocial outcomes, perhaps because they have not acquired skills to navigate adversities of illness. In a recent phase II randomized controlled trial (RCT), the “Promoting Resilience in Stress Management” (PRISM) intervention was associated with improved patient-reported resilience, quality of life and distress. In this planned analysis of secondary aims, we hypothesized PRISM would also improve targeted coping skills of hopeful thinking, benefit-finding, and goal-setting.
Methods:
We conducted this parallel RCT at Seattle Children’s Hospital from Jan/2015-Oct/2016. English-speaking AYAs (13–25 years-old) with cancer were randomized one-to-one to PRISM or usual care (UC). PRISM teaches stress-management, goal-setting, cognitive-reframing, and meaning-making skills in four sessions delivered in-person every other week. Participants completed surveys at enrollment and 6-months later. Mixed effects linear regression models evaluated associations between PRISM and benefit-finding (Benefit-Finding Scale for Children), hopeful thinking (Hope Scale), and an exploratory outcome of goal-setting (queried with open-ended items about participant’s goals, measured qualitatively by 3 blinded reviewers).
Results:
Of N=92 AYAs (48 PRISM, 44 UC), 73% were 13–17 years-old, 43% female, and 62% diagnosed with leukemia or lymphoma. PRISM was associated with improved benefit-finding and hope with moderate-to-large effect sizes: Benefit-finding: +3.1 points, 95% CI 0.0,6.2, d=0.4, p=0.05; Hope: +3.6 points, 95% CI 0.7,6.4, d=0.6, p=0.01. We did not detect changes in goal-setting (−0.5 points, 95% CI −1.2,0.3, d=−0.3, p=0.23).
Conclusions:
PRISM was associated with improvements in benefit-finding and hopeful thinking, two adaptive coping skills which may mitigate long-term psychosocial risk.