Adolescents With Cancer May Derive Benefit From Skills-targeted Interventions

Adolescents and young adults with cancer may benefit from receiving interventions that develop various skills that will help them cope with the issues that accompany their illness, according to study results presented at the 2017 Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium.¹

For this study, investigators randomly assigned 100 adolescents and young adults with cancer ages 12 to 25 years old 1:1 to the “Promoting Resilience in Stress Management” (PRISM) intervention (one-on-one and facilitated family-meetings that attempt to improve stress management, goal-setting, cognitive reframing, and meaning making) or to non-directive usual psychosocial care. Patient-reported outcome (PRO) surveys were completed at enrollment and at 6 months after the intervention.

The primary outcome for the study was patient-reported resilience and the secondary outcomes included health-related quality of life, hope, and psychosocial distress.

Of the enrolled patients, 92% completed the surveys at baseline. A similar loss in patient participation was observed in both arms, primarily due to death and/or medical complications; 72% of patients in the PRISM arm and 76% of patients in the standard psychosocial arm completed the 6-month PRO survey.

Patients in the PRISM arm achieved improvements in all outcomes targeted by the intervention: resilience (+2.3; 95% CI, 0.7 to 4.0), quality of life (+6.3; 95% CI, -0.8 to 13.5), hope (+2.8; 95% CI, 0.5 to 5.1), and distress (-1.6; 95% CI, -3.3 to 0.0). 

The authors concluded that this “targeted intervention targeting skills for [adolescents and young adults] with cancer was effective in improving patient-centered outcomes.”

Reference

1. Rosenberg AR, Bradford M, Klein V, et al. The “Promoting Resilience in Stress Management” (PRISM) intervention for adolescents and young adults: a pilot randomized controlled trial. Poster presentation at: 2017 Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium; October 27-28, 2017; San Diego, CA. Abstract 176.