Long‐term telephone therapy outcomes for breast cancer patients

Abstract

We present the results of a breast cancer clinical trial that tested two therapy interventions delivered by telephone. Women (N = 218) with Stages I, II, or III breast cancer were randomly assigned to breast cancer health education or emotional expression interventions, or to a standard care control condition. Outcome and process measures were obtained at baseline, 6-month and 13-month follow-ups. Oncology certified nurses conducted the therapies in six, 30-minute individual phone sessions. Women in the health education condition reported significantly better knowledge and less perceived stress compared to women in the emotional expression and control conditions. No treatment effects, however, were obtained for quality of life or mood, and all women generally improved on these measures over time. Secondary analyses showed that younger women and women with a more advanced stage of breast cancer reported significantly greater avoidant coping. The data show that telephone therapy is a viable delivery modality and that distress improves with time for most women. Overall, this study showed that neither of the two telephone interventions tested had a meaningful effect on quality of life or mood.

Course of Distress in Breast Cancer Patients, Their Partners, and Matched Control Couples

“…In accordance, the design of clinical trials testing interventions for the reduction of psychological distress in couples facing cancer-in either patients or their partnershas typically been guided by the implicit assumption that, as a population, unselected couples or individuals facing cancer are sufficiently distressed to register a benefit for intervention [4]. However, recruitment of patient samples lacking in sufficient distress to respond positively has beenintervention trials [5,6]. The risk is that psychosocial interventions will be labeled as inefficacious when they would have been shown to be efficacious when administered to a sample with greater distress [4].…”

Effects of Follow-up by Phone Interview and Anger Management Training Provided to Patients with Breast Cancer Undergoing Radiotherapy on Levels of Self-Esteem, Anger and Depression

“…The previous studies demonstrated that patients receiving information and support can more conveniently cope with conditions causing psychological distress such as anger, hopelessness or ambiguousness. [8][9][10]13,14,22,26,27 In the literature, it has been shown that there are some changes in the feeling of identity and ego; thus, there may be a decrease in self-esteem in patients with breast cancer. [4][5][6][7]12,28 In patients with breast cancer, it is thought that this could be due experiencing alterations in body image and selfesteem with changes in their body.…”

“…Phone interviews are an effective method to provide information and support to individuals and groups in cancers as well as several chronic diseases. [9][10][11][12][13][14]22 In several studies, they was found that, by this method, the level of knowledge is increased in patient receiving chemotherapy while symptoms related to chemotherapy are decreased. 12,[23][24][25] In our study, no significant difference was found between experiment and control groups regarding mean overall anger scores obtained before training (p> 0.05).…”

“…It has been suggested that telepsychiatric follow-up is an effective innovation which can be used in clinical care, education and investigation. [13][14][15] The telepsychiatric follow-up can be provided by several ways including video conference, e-mail or web pages. When pooled results of the studies on this issue were reviewed, it was found that education, counseling and follow-up by phone interviews improved the psychosocial adaptation levels in the patients.…”

“…10,11,13 Previous studies have shown that phone interviews in patients with breast cancer are inexpensive and improve their adaptation to society. [11][12][13][14][15] By considering these studies, follow-up by phone interviews can be used to ensure continuity of psycho-oncology care in an effective manner and to maintain nursing care.…”