Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cognitive-behavioral stress management interventions are associated with improved psychological well-being for cancer survivors. The availability of, access to, and outreach of these in-person interventions are limited, however. The current study, therefore, evaluated the efficacy of StressProffen, a digital application (app)-based stress management intervention for cancer survivors, in a 12-month randomized controlled trial.

METHODS: Cancer survivors 1 year or less after their treatment (N = 172) were randomized to the StressProffen intervention (n = 84) or a usual-care control group (n = 88). The intervention was delivered in a simple blended care model: 1) 1 in-person introduction session, 2) 10 app-based cognitive-behavioral stress management modules, and 3) 2 follow-up phone calls. Stress (Perceived Stress Scale), anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), self-regulatory fatigue (Self-Regulatory Fatigue 18), and health-related quality of life (HRQOL; RAND-36) were examined at the baseline and at 6 and 12 months. Generalized linear models for repeated measures were fitted to compare effects over time.

RESULTS: Participants were mainly female (82%), had a mean age of 52 years (standard deviation, 11.3 years; range, 20-78 years), and had a variety of cancer types (mostly breast cancer [48%]). Over the 12-month study time, the intervention group reported significantly decreased stress (P < .001), depression (P = .003), and self-regulatory fatigue (P = .002) as well as improved HRQOL (for 6 of 8 domains, P ≤ .015) in comparison with controls. The largest favored effects for the intervention group were observed at 6 months: stress (estimated mean difference [MD], -5.1; P < .001), anxiety (MD, -1.4; P = .015), depression (MD, -2.1; P < .001), self-regulatory fatigue (MD, -4.9; P < .001), and HRQOL (7 of 8 domains; P ≤ .037).

CONCLUSIONS: Digital stress management interventions such as StressProffen have the potential to extend the outreach of psychological interventions and provide easily available and effective psychosocial support for cancer survivors.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2-2021

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Cancer.

© 2021 The Authors

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.34046

Funding Information

Funding was provided by the Norwegian Cancer Society (4602492-2013; principal investigator Lise Solberg Nes) and the Department of Digital Health Research of Oslo University Hospital (Oslo, Norway).

Download

Share

COinS