Who benefits from a psychosocial counselling versus educational intervention to improve psychological quality of life in prostate cancer survivors?

Abstract

Objective: We examined selected survivor characteristics to determine what factors might moderate the response to two psychosocial interventions.

Design: Seventy-one prostate cancer survivors (PCSs) were randomly assigned to either a telephone-delivered health education (THE) intervention or a telephone-delivered interpersonal counselling (TIP-C) intervention.

Measures: Psychological quality of life (QOL) outcomes included depression, negative and positive affect, and perceived stress.

Results: For three of the psychological outcomes (depression, negative affect and stress), there were distinct advantages from participating in THE. For example, more favourable depression outcomes occurred when men were older, had lower prostate specific functioning, were in active chemotherapy, had lower social support from friends and lower cancer knowledge. Participating in the TIP-C provided a more favourable outcome for positive affect when men had higher education, prostate specific functioning, social support from friends and cancer knowledge.

Conclusion: Unique survivor characteristics must be considered when recommending interventions that might improve psychological QOL in PCSs. Future research must examine who benefits most and from what components of psychosocial interventions to enable clinicians to recommend appropriate psychosocial care.

Keywords:

• psychosocial interventions
• QOL
• prostate cancer
• psychological distress

Acknowledgements

Funding for this R21 study (R21CA113409) was provided by the National Cancer Institute to Terry Badger. We gratefully thank our recruitment sites: Arizona Cancer Center, Veteran's Affairs Health Care Systems in Phoenix and Tucson. This material is the result of work supported with the resources and the use of facilities at the Veterans Affairs Health Care Systems in Phoenix and Tucson. We thank our research staffs, Maria Figueroa, Xochitl Gaxiola, Jeannine Thomas, Jen Riech and Karina Othon-Tapia.

Disclaimer: The contents of this publication do not represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.