This clinical trial tests how well acceptance and commitment therapy and compassion based virtual group therapy works to improve psychological wellbeing, such as compassion, understanding, and flexibility, in patients with cancer. Receiving a cancer diagnosis, undergoing cancer treatment, and living with cancer- or treatment-related symptoms have often been found to be associated with elevated distress and decreased quality of life for individuals, even when the disease is stable or in remission. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has demonstrated considerable benefits on individuals' quality of life, psychological flexibility, and amelioration of psychological distress following a cancer diagnosis and in the face of uncertainty, loss, and challenges associated with cancer.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: I. To assess if participants perceive compassion and understanding by the provider who facilitates the virtual group intervention. II. To assess if participation in the ACT-based group intervention is associated with increases in patients' self-reported psychological flexibility as well as amelioration in psychological and physical distress. SECONDARY OBJECTIVE: I. To assess if participation in the ACT-based group intervention is associated with increases in patients' self-reported mindfulness, self-compassion, meaning and purpose, and posttraumatic growth. OUTLINE: Patients attend acceptance and commitment virtual group therapy sessions over 1.5 hours each, once a week for 6 weeks. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up at 1 month.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NA
Purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
200
Attend virtual group therapy sessions
Ancillary study
Mayo Clinic in Arizona
Scottsdale, Arizona, United States
RECRUITINGParticipant perceived compassion and understanding by the group therapy provider - SCQ
Will be assessed based on average scores using the 5-item Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ), answered using a 5-point scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree)
Time frame: From baseline to 1 month post session 6
Patients' self-reported psychological flexibility - COMPACT-15
Will be assessed using the 15-item Comprehensive Assessment of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Processes (COMPACT-15). Questions are answered on a scale of 0-6 (strongly disagree, moderately disagree, slightly disagree, neither agree nor disagree, slightly agree, moderately agree, strongly agree).
Time frame: From baseline to 1 month post session 6
Patients' self-reported psychological flexibility - Psy-Flex
Will be assessed using the 6-item Psy-Flex scale. Questions are answered on a 5-point scale (very often, often, from time to time, seldom, very seldom) based on experiences over the past 7 days.
Time frame: From baseline to 1 month post session 6
Physician and psychological distress - PROMIS-29
Will be assessed using the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS)-29 v2.0 Profile, which assesses pain intensity using a 0-10 numeric rating scale across seven health domains (physical function, fatigue, pain interference, depressive symptoms, anxiety, ability to participate in social roles and activities, and sleep disturbance), with four items per domain.
Time frame: From baseline to 1 month post session 6
Self reported mindfulness
Will be assessed using the 15-item Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire - Short Form (FFMQ-SF). Questions are answered on a scale of 1-5 (1-never or very rarely true, 2-rarely true, 3-sometimes true, 4-often true, 5-very often or always true).
Time frame: Baseline; 1 month post session 6 (not assessed at mid-group to reduce patient survey burden)
Self-compassion
Will be assessed using the the 12- item Self-Compassion Scale Short Form (SCS-SF). Questions are answered on a scale of 1-5 where 1 = almost never and 5 = almost always.
Time frame: Baseline; 1 month post session 6 (not assessed at mid-group to reduce patient survey burden)
Meaning and purpose
Will be assessed using the 5-item Presence of Meaning subscale of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ). Questions are answered on a 7-point scale (absolutely untrue, mostly untrue, somewhat untrue, cannot say true or false, somewhat true, mostly true, absolutely true).
Time frame: Baseline; 1 month post session 6 (not assessed at mid-group to reduce patient survey burden)
Posttraumatic growth
Will be assessed using the 10-item Posttraumatic Growth Inventory - Short Form (PTGI-SF). Questions are answered on a scale of 0-5 where 0 = I did not experience this change following my cancer diagnosis; 1 = I experienced this change to a very small degree following my cancer diagnosis; 2 = I experienced this change to a small degree following my cancer diagnosis; 3 = I experienced this change to a moderate degree following my cancer diagnosis; 4 = I experienced this change to a great degree following my cancer diagnosis; and 5 = I experienced this change to a very great degree following my cancer diagnosis.
Time frame: Baseline; 1 month post session 6 (not assessed at mid-group to reduce patient survey burden)
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