Project Genesis: Assessing the Efficacy of Problem-Solving Therapy for Distressed Adult Cancer Patients.

Abstract

The efficacy of problem-solving therapy (PST) to reduce psychological distress was assessed among a sample of 132 adult cancer patients. A second condition provided PST for both the patient and a significant other. At posttreatment, all participants receiving PST fared significantly better than waiting list control patients. Further, improvements in problem solving were found to correlate significantly with improvements in psychological distress and overall quality of life. No differences in symptom reduction were identified between the 2 treatment protocols. At a 6-month follow-up, however, patients who received PST along with their significant other reported lower levels of psychological distress as compared with members of the PST-alone condition on approximately half of the outcome measures. These effects were further maintained 1-year posttreatment.

Long-term effects on cancer survivors’ quality of life of physical training versus physical training combined with cognitive-behavioral therapy: results from a randomized trial

“…Our findings are also not consistent with previous reports, suggesting that the effect of cognitive-behavioral therapy may become more prominent over longer follow-up times [2,25]. An explanation may be that the physical training intervention in the present trial comprised a self-management approach.…”

“…This problemsolving training showed to have beneficial short-and longterm effects for cancer survivors in quality of life [25]. Furthermore, it has been effectively applied for a variety of mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, and medical conditions including diabetes, back pain, arthritis, hypertension, headaches, and obesity [10,23].…”

“…It may be that physical training has immediate effects on quality of life. Cognitivebehavioral therapy that confronts patients with personal worries and possibly increasing distress [13,28] might have long-term benefits [2,25,29]. Hence, the long-term effects of physical training combined with cognitive-behavioral therapy on quality of life may be greater compared to the effects of physical training alone.…”

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

“…Six studies compared the couples intervention with a patient-only intervention [35,36,37,38,39,40], eight studies used a patient-only comparison group and a usual care control group [41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48], one study compared two types of couples interventions with a patient-alone comparison group [49], and the remaining twenty compared a couples intervention with usual care or waiting-list controls. Twenty-eight studies reported effect sizes, or provided information to calculate effect sizes.…”

“…Interventions using CBST improved somatic/ physical outcomes including symptom perception [41,42,63,61,48], fitness/ muscle strength [49], sexual limitation [64], physical Quality of Life (QOL) [61], Cholesterol [34], and fear of movement [48]. In comparison with a patient-only/ control group, CBST interventions enhanced behaviours such as dyadic coping [43], medication adherence [65], and increased dietary self-efficacy and spousal support [59].…”