The Effectiveness of Bibliotherapy on Emotional Distress, Coping Strategies and Resilience of Adolescents With Cancer

National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Emotional Distress; Pediatric Cancer

Treatments: Other: reading bibliotherapy; Other: interactive bibliotherapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05510635

T-24142-54260-19890

Details and patient eligibility

About

Adolescents with cancer who were diagnosed within two years suffered severe emotional distress. Bibliotherapy therapy uses healing materials as a medium to enable individuals experiencing emotional distress to obtain emotional healing through story situations, thereby enhancing resilience. However, there is a lack of research on bibliotherapy in adolescents with cancer. Therefore, the investigators would like to evaluate the effectiveness of interactive bibliotherapy in improving emotional distress and coping strategies and enhancing the resilience of adolescents with cancer compared to reading bibliotherapy.

Full description

A multicenter randomized controlled trial will be conducted. Adolescents aged 10 to 19 years and diagnosed with cancer or relapse during the first two years will be included in the study. Seventy participants from three medical centers in northern Taiwan will be assigned to experimental or comparison groups through blocked randomization. The experimental group will receive the interactive bibliotherapy twice, and the comparison group will receive the reading bibliotherapy twice. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, Pediatric Cancer Coping Scale, and Haase Adolescent Resilience in Illness Scale will be used to measure participants' emotional distress, coping strategies and resilience at the time points of pre-intervention, after the intervention, and follow-up for a month after the intervention. An interview will be conducted over the intervention for a month. The generalized estimating equation will be used to analyze the two groups' emotional distress, coping strategies, and resilience. The content analysis will be performed to analyze the interview data. It is hoped that the results of this study can prove that bibliotherapy has the potential to improve emotional distress and coping strategies and enhance resilience in adolescents with cancer. This study is expected to provide health providers with novel evidence on the effectiveness of an intervention to take care of patients with cancer. Furthermore, this study provides an interdisciplinary intervention of nursing and other domain, and it may be extended to further research to improve patient care quality through cross-disciplinary coordination.

Enrollment: 27 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 10 to 19 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Adolescents aged 10 to 19 years.
• Adolescents were diagnosed with leukemia or osteosarcoma.
• Adolescents were diagnosed with cancer or relapsed during the first two years.
• Adolescents who have received cancer treatment.
• Adolescents who can read picture books and communicate with Chinese.

Exclusion criteria

• Adolescents who have psychiatric history.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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27 participants in 2 patient groups

interactive bibliotherapy

Experimental group

Description:

All adolescents enrolled in the experimental group will receive two times of interactive bibliotherapy with an interval of 7 to 14 days. The researcher will read the story to the participant and then discuss it with him/her.

Treatment:

Other: interactive bibliotherapy

reading bibliotherapy

Active Comparator group

Description:

All adolescents enrolled in the comparison group will receive two times of reading bibliotherapy with an interval of 7 to 14 days. The participant will read the story alone.

Treatment:

Other: reading bibliotherapy