Emotion And Symptom-focused Engagement (EASE): An Intervention for Individuals With Acute Leukemia

University Health Network, Toronto

Status: Completed

Conditions: Acute Leukemia

Treatments: Behavioral: EASE

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02353559

13-6631

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to test the feasibility of an individual psychological and physical symptom intervention, called Emotion And Symptom-focused Engagement (EASE), to reduce traumatic stress and physical symptom burden in individuals newly diagnosed with acute leukemia.

Full description

This study involves the pilot-testing of a newly developed, brief manualized individual psychotherapy and physical symptom control intervention, called Emotion And Symptom-focused Engagement (EASE), to reduce traumatic stress and physical symptom burden in individuals newly diagnosed with acute leukemia. The purpose of this study is to conduct a two-arm randomized pilot trial (RPT) to test the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of EASE against usual care (UC) for the reduction of traumatic stress and physical symptom burden in patients with acute leukemia. Usual care for individuals with acute leukemia treated at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre includes referral for non-standardized, and primarily instrumental, psychosocial care and palliative care service as needed.

The design will be an unblinded RPT consisting of two conditions (EASE and UC), with a baseline assessment and follow-ups at 4, 8, and 12 weeks. The trial will take place at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network; a comprehensive cancer center in Toronto, Canada. Participants will be newly diagnosed with acute leukemia, within one month of diagnosis and/or admission to hospital for treatment with curative intent.

Enrollment: 47 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• new or relapsed diagnosis of acute leukemia (an amendment to allow recruitment of relapsed patients was approved on 24-Sep-2015, although no relapsed patients were ultimately recruited)
• will be receiving induction chemotherapy with curative intent and within 1 month of diagnosis and/or admission to hospital at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre
• age ≥ 18 years
• fluency in English
• no cognitive impairment indicated in the medical record, communicated by the hematology clinical team, or determined by research staff at recruitment.

Exclusion criteria

• inability to pass the cognitive screening test (Short Orientation-Memory Concentration Test [SOMC] score <20)
• actively receiving psychological/psychiatric counseling or palliative care services from the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care (POPC), now called the Department of Supportive Care, at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at the time of recruitment to this study

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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47 participants in 2 patient groups

EASE

Experimental group

Description:

Patients assigned to the intervention arm will receive 8 - 12 psychotherapy sessions lasting 30 - 60 minutes each, delivered by a trained therapist at our center. Patients will receive specialized symptom control from a nurse/physician team in our Palliative Care Service, when indicated by routine symptom screening.

Treatment:

Behavioral: EASE

Usual Care

No Intervention group

Description:

Usual care