Peer support to maintain psychological wellbeing in people with advanced cancer: A feasibility study

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Specialty: Cancer, Primary sub-specialty: Palliative and supportive care; UKCRC code/ Disease: Cancer/ Malignant neoplasms of ill-defined, secondary and unspecified sites; Cancer; Malignant neoplasms

• Registration Number: ISRCTN10276684
• Lead Sponsor: ancaster University

Brief Summary

2020 Results article in https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31994006/ results (added 12/05/2020) 2020 Results article in https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32807157/ results (added 21/08/2020)

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Results First Posted: 1900-01-01
• Study Start: 2016-06-29
• Study Completion: 2018-11-30
• Last Update Posted: 26 September 2022

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 30

Inclusion Criteria

Patient inclusion criteria:
1. Aged 16 years and over
2. With advanced cancer (any type), defined as metastatic disease at diagnosis, and/or with local or metastatic spread following treatment and/or where prognosis is estimated as less than a year. Those whom their health care professionals judge to have a prognosis > 3 months to facilitate study completion.
3. Those whom their health care professionals judge have capacity to give informed consent to research participation.
4. Assessed by their health care professional as understanding their diagnosis of advanced cancer.
5. Able to adequately understand and respond to verbal and written material in English.

Peer Mentor inclusion criteria:
1. Experience of living with cancer
2. At least six months post diagnosis
3. Aged 18 years and over
4. Able to commit to six months of volunteering
5. Have at least two hours per week available for volunteering
6. Live in the geographic area selected for the project
7. Fluency in written and spoken English
8. Qualitative demonstration of empathy, compassion, and open and non-didactic communication skills
9. Satisfactory completion of project-specific training (assessed by research team)
10. DBS clearance for working with vulnerable people.

Carer and Professional Participants:
Recruited patients will be asked to nominate one person they get most support from”, and an invitation to participate sent to this identified carer. In addition, patient participants will nominate one healthcare professional providing cancer and/or palliative care to them on a regular basis, and an invitation to participate will be sent to this identified healthcare professional.

Exclusion Criteria

Patient criteria:
1. Aged under 16 years
2. With advanced cancer prognosis < 3 months
3. Those whom their health care professionals judge not to have capacity to give informed consent to research participation
4. Assessed by their health care professional as not understanding their diagnosis of advanced cancer

Peer Mentor criteria:
1. No experience of living with cancer
2. Less than months post diagnosis
3. Aged under 18 years
4. Unable to commit to six months of volunteering
5. ave less than two hours per week available for volunteering
6. Live outside the geographic area selected for the project
7. No qualitative demonstration of empathy, compassion, and open and non-didactic communication skills
8. Unable to be granted DBS clearance for working with vulnerable people

Carer Participants:
1. Aged under 18 years
2. Caring for someone with an advanced cancer prognosis < 3 months
3. Those whom patient's health care professionals judge not to have capacity to give informed consent to research participation
4. Assessed by the patient's health care professional as not understanding the associated patient's diagnosis of advanced cancer

Professional Participants:
No exclusion criteria

Study & Design

• Study Type: Interventional
• Study Design: Not specified