Psychosocial interventions to improve quality of life in prostate cancer survivors and their intimate or family partners

Abstract

Purpose-The primary purpose was to test the effectiveness of two telephone-delivered psychosocial interventions for maintaining and improving quality of life (QOL) (psychological, physical, social, and spiritual well-being) among 71 prostate cancer survivors and the 70 intimate or family partners who were supporting them in their recovery.Methods-This study used a three-wave repeated measures experimental design. Both the interpersonal counseling intervention (TIP-C) and health education attention condition (HEAC) were delivered using the telephone.Results-Improvements in depression, negative affect, stress, fatigue, and spiritual well-being were significantly higher for survivors in the HEAC than for those in the TIP-C condition. Partners in the HEAC condition showed significantly greater improvements in depression, fatigue, social support from family members, social well-being, and spiritual well-being compared to partners in the TIP-C condition. The results revealed superior outcomes for those assigned to the HEAC intervention.Correspondence to: Terry A. Badger, tbadger@nursing.arizona.edu. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptQual Life Res. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2012 August 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptConclusions-The psychosocial interventions in this study were effective in maintaining or improving the QOL for prostate cancer survivors and their partners. Both the survivor and their intimate partner or family member benefitted from the interventions. Future research is needed to determine the optimal timing and client characteristics for each intervention. KeywordsPsychosocial interventions; QOL; Prostate cancer; Intimate partner; Family membersIn 2010, 217,730 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer [1]. With early diagnosis, prostate cancer is highly treatable, reflected in 5-year survival rates of almost 99%. As the death rate from cancer declines, the number of people living with prostate cancer continues to increase. The significant numbers of prostate cancer survivors and their families emphasize the need for increased attention to survivorship and quality of life (QOL) (psychological, physical, social, and spiritual well-being) [2,3]. The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of two psychosocial interventions to improve the QOL for men with prostate cancer and their intimate partners or family social network members (all called "partners" in this study).Psychological distress in men with prostate cancer can negatively influence QOL during cancer treatment. The incidence of clinically significant levels of depression and anxiety in prostate cancer survivors has been reported as 16 and 12%, respectively [4], which is higher than population norms for older males. For prostate cancer patients on Androgen Deprivation Therapy, the risk of major depressive disorder is 8 times the national rate for men and 32 times the rate for those over age 65 [5]. Depression is associated with decreased compliance with adjuvant therapy and a ...

Telemedicine Use Among Caregivers of Cancer Patients: Systematic Review (Preprint)

“…relationship with partner, perception of patient's health condition). In the former, the most examined constructs are Quality of Life [50,52,54,56,59,62,[64][65][66][67], and Distress [50,52,53,59,61,62,65,[67][68][69]. To assess Quality of Life different tools were used including the Functional Assessment of Cancer Treatment (FACT-G) (n = 4), the Short Form (SF) 36-item and 12-item version (n = 2), the CG QOL Scale-Cancer (CQOL-C) (n = 2), the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Core Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) (n = 1), the Medical Outcomes Study 12-item short form (MOS SF-12) (n = 1), the UCLA Prostate Cancer Index (n=1).…”

“…Caregiver self-efficacy both in managing own emotions and in helping the patients to control symptoms was measured in five studies [52,59,61,67,70] and was always statistically significant. Five studies reported significant differences in Quality of Life aspects: three of them showed significant effects in all dimensions of Quality of Life [52,65,67]; Two studies showed significant effects in spiritual and social well-being [59,65], while one study [60] showed significant outcomes in social well-being. Emotional distress or stress symptoms revealed significant differences between pre-and post-treatment in five of the considered studies [50,52,65,67,69], while both depressive symptoms [55,57,65] and perceived social support [62,65,66] improved in three different trials.…”

“…Five studies reported significant differences in Quality of Life aspects: three of them showed significant effects in all dimensions of Quality of Life [52,65,67]; Two studies showed significant effects in spiritual and social well-being [59,65], while one study [60] showed significant outcomes in social well-being. Emotional distress or stress symptoms revealed significant differences between pre-and post-treatment in five of the considered studies [50,52,65,67,69], while both depressive symptoms [55,57,65] and perceived social support [62,65,66] improved in three different trials. Furthermore, included articles reported significant effects -albeit smaller -in other measured outcomes: after the completion of the interventions, family members also experienced less anxiety, less sense of disruptiveness, hopelessness and uncertainty, less burden, and negative appraisal of caregiving.…”

“…In twelve papers an intervention was developed an intervention for a unique type of cancer patients [49,[51][52][53][54]58,60,61,65,66,68,70], while the others implemented telemedicine tools for a multifaceted sample including patients with different cancer diagnoses [48,50,[55][56][57]59,[62][63][64]67,71].…”

“…Eight of them were conducted by prepared nurses [48,52,54,56,59,61,62,71]; four were carried out by social workers [60,65,68,70]; three were operated at a distance by carers distance using web-based platforms [51,55,58]. In three randomized trials the intervention was delivered by clinical psychologists [53,62,69], while in another trial a genetic counsellor conducted the telehealth risk communication to motivate colonoscopy [49].…”