“It just made me feel better”: qualitative examination of the implementation of a novel virtual psychosocial support program for adolescents with cancer

Abstract

Adolescents with cancer routinely report feelings of isolation and exclusion, including from medical decision-making. To address this problem and support adolescents, we designed and implemented the novel, virtual, weekly Teens4Teens peer support group and patient education program. We examined the views of participating adolescents, program guest speakers, and program moderators as they pertained to the need for the program, its feasibility, acceptability, and perceived impact. MethodsWe recruited all available adolescents, moderators, and guest speakers who participated in Teens4Teens to take part in audio-recorded, semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using thematic analysis. ResultsWe conducted 21 interviews across participant groups. We identi ed four broad themes: pathways into the Teen4Teens program, Teens4Teens implementation capacity, perspectives of the positive impact of Teens4Teens and suggestions to improve Teens4Teens. These themes described a perceived need for adolescent-centered psychosocial programing in pediatric cancer care, provided lessons on how best to build and apply such a program, and highlighted the value of the program for both adolescents and clinicians' acceptability, feasibility, and perceived utility. ConclusionAdolescents, guest speakers, and moderators valued Teens4Teens and made suggestions to improve capacity to routinely implement the program. Adolescent-tailored psychosocial programming such as Teens4Teens is positioned to be integrated into clinical care with relative ease and may serve to improve the cancer care experience of adolescents and their families. This study has potential to provide researchers and clinicians with valuable information about the content, design, and delivery of virtual peer support programming for adolescents with cancer.