Couple-Focused Group Intervention for Women With Early Stage Breast Cancer.

Abstract

This study examined the efficacy of a couple-focused group intervention on psychological adaptation of women with early stage breast cancer and evaluated whether perceived partner unsupportive behavior or patient functional impairment moderated intervention effects. Two hundred thirty-eight women were randomly assigned to receive either 6 sessions of a couple-focused group intervention or usual care. Intent-to-treat growth curve analyses indicated that participants assigned to the couples' group reported lower depressive symptoms. Women rating their partners as more unsupportive benefited more from the intervention than did women with less unsupportive partners, and women with more physical impairment benefited more from the intervention group than did women with less impairment. Subgroup analyses comparing women attending the couple-focused group intervention with women not attending groups and with usual care participants indicated that women attending sessions reported significantly less distress than did women receiving usual care and women who dropped out of the intervention.

Course of Distress in Breast Cancer Patients, Their Partners, and Matched Control Couples

“…This response rate reflects (a) the burden of the intensive design of the study as patients were asked to complete a broad range of questionnaires, and (b) perhaps more importantly, the consent procedure required by the Institutional Review Board and the initiative it required from the patients to enroll in the study. Nonetheless, this percentage is comparable to what has been found in some well-resourced studies investigating couples [33,34]. The main reason (31%) for not participating was that couples indicated that participating was too great a burden.…”

Exploring the effectiveness of couples interventions for adults living with a chronic physical illness: A systematic review

“…Interventions were grouped into two categories according to their main therapeutic approach: 'Cognitive Behavioural Skills Training' (CBST) (n=25), which focuses on illness cognitions, education, goal setting, and coping strategies such as problem solving and symptom management; and 'Relationship Counselling' (RC) (n=10), which addresses relationship difficulties such as sexual intimacy, partner supportiveness, and communication [38,51,45,52,53,54,55,56,57,58]. There was no noticeable effect of mode of delivery (faceto-face, telephone, online) on illness type or outcomes.…”

“…When compared with a patient-only or control group, interventions which contained a module which provided techniques for managing and/ or sharing difficult emotions, effectively reduced depression and emotional distress among couples [67,36,43,60,51,64,61,52,39,56,58], and anxiety [45] and perceived stress [44] in partners.…”

Psychological intervention with couples coping with breast cancer: A systematic review

“…Some psychological programs have been developed for couples coping with breast cancer (e.g., Baucom et al, 2009;Manne et al, 2005;Scott, Halford, & Ward, 2004). There is, however, little information about the effectiveness of psychological interventions for couples coping with breast cancer.…”

“…Research shows that women with breast cancer identify their partners as their main source of support and that this support plays an important role in women's psychological well-being and adjustment to the disease as well as in their physical health (e.g., immune function) (Baider, Ever-Hadani, Goldzweig, Wygoda, & Peretz, 2003;Baucom et al, 2012;Manne et al, 2005;Stiell, Naaman, & Lee, 2007;Weihs, Enright, & Simmens, 2008). However, partners are not always able to respond in a helpful and supportive way because of their own psychological distress, problems in the couple relationship, or complicated motivations about caregiving (e.g., acting to avoid feeling guilt, following social expectations about a proper role, or to find a sense of purpose and fulfillment in caregiving task).…”