Cancer patients experience various psychological and social difficulties, the most common being depression and anxiety. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an app-based cognitive behavioral therapy program for depression and anxiety in cancer patients. For this purpose, 63 participants who met the inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to either a mobile-application-based cognitive behavioral therapy program (HARUToday), a simple information-provision mobile-application-based program (HARUCard), or a waitlist control group. Self-report questionnaires including the Beck Depression Inventory, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Health-Related Quality of Life Scale, Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, and two computer tasks including the dot-probe task and the Implicit Association Test, were administered before and after 66 days of intervention. The results showed that the Beck Depression Inventory and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores of the cognitive behavioral therapy program (HARUToday) group decreased significantly after the intervention compared to the attention control (HARUCard) and waitlist control groups. However, there were no significant changes in scores of the Health-Related Quality of Life Scale and Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, and the two computer tasks. Such results suggest that a mobile-application-based cognitive behavioral therapy program may be an effective intervention for alleviating depression and anxiety, but not the general quality of life of cancer patients. Taking into consideration that psychosocial problems may not the topmost priority for cancer patients who are facing a chronic and possibly mortal disease, a mobile-application cognitive behavioral therapy program may be a possible solution for the alleviation of depression and anxiety in cancer patients who have many restraints in terms of time and space.

ObjectiveThis pilot study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a digital cognitive behavioral therapy (dCBT) in patients with cancer experiencing sleep problems.MethodsA total of 57 participants aged 25–65 years (6M/51F with a mean of 42.80 years and a standard deviation of 14.15 years) were randomly assigned to three groups—21 participants to a dCBT program (HARUToday Sleep), 20 participants to an app-based attentional control program (HARUCard Sleep), and 16 participants to a waitlist control group—and evaluated offline before and after the program completion. Of the 57 participants, there were a total of 45 study completers, 15 participants in each group. The dependent variables were sleep quality scores, measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and health-related quality of life scores, measured using the Short-Form 36 (SF-36), and attentional bias scores from a dot-probe computer task.ResultsFor both the intention-to-treat (N = 57) and study-completers analyses (N = 45, 15 for each group), a significant increase supported by a large effect size was found in the quality of sleep score of the HARUToday Sleep group compared to both the app-based attentional control and the waitlist control group. However, no significant changes were found in the quality of life and attentional bias scores.ConclusionOur results suggest that the HARUToday Sleep app has the potential to serve as an intervention module to enhance the sleep quality of patients with cancer experiencing sleep problems.

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