Project SOAR Awakenings: Randomized Controlled Trial for Black American Women Diagnosed With Breast Cancer

Recruitment of participants for the Project SOAR Awakenings trial will be conducted via the website and other social media platforms of Carrie's TOUCH (https://carriestouch.org), a nonprofit organization located in Sacramento California for Black American women diagnosed with breast cancer. The president of Carrie's TOUCH is Rev. Dr.(Hon) Tammie Denyse, the Project SOAR (Speaking Our African American Realities) Awakenings co-Principal Investigator. Recruitment also will involve announcements and a flyer to parishioner rosters of the fifth district of African Methodist Episcopal (AME) churches, which comprises 15 states and with which Rev Dr.(Hon) Denyse is affiliated.

Announcements will direct women to an email and phone number to contact if they are interested in taking part in the Project SOAR Awakenings trial. When a potential participant expresses interest in the trial via email/phone, research staff will contact her to describe the trial, summarize elements of informed consent, confirm eligibility, answer any questions, and transmit the electronic baseline questionnaire to collect demographic data and reliable and valid measures of outcome variables (i.e., depressive symptoms, fatigue, well-being) and mediators (i.e., self-compassion, cancer-related coping through emotional expression, cancer-related avoidance-oriented coping). All elements of informed consent are described at the beginning of the electronic baseline questionnaire, and contact information is provided for research staff, principal investigators, and the Institutional Review Board. At the end of the description, participants are asked to click to proceed to the baseline questionnaire if they would like to take part in the study.

Upon the completion of the baseline questionnaires, women will be randomized 1:1 via an electronic platform to the Awakenings intervention or the enhanced treatment as usual (ETAU) condition. All participants then will be mailed resources constructed to promote caring for the self, including a book (Homecoming, 2022, Bryant), an article on the Strong Black Woman schema (Denyse … Stanton, 2023), a Project SOAR personal journal, a Project SOAR cup, a Rest Deck (Rest Is Resistance, 2022, Hersey), and a Project SOAR blanket. All participants also will be compensated $100 in a gift card (e.g., Target, Amazon) for their time at the three-month assessment point.

The date and time of the first intervention session will be emailed to participants randomized to the Project SOAR Awakenings intervention, with reminder phone calls. The four Project SOAR Awakenings sessions will be conducted electronically (Zoom) in group format (10-18 participants/group) by Rev. Dr.(Hon) Denyse and another interventionist, Dr. Thea Hairston, who also is expert in psychosocial interventions with Black American women, as assisted by a doctoral candidate research staff. Leaders and participants all will identify as Black American women. One session will be conducted each week over four weeks; each session will be approximately two hours long, for a total of eight hours. Women who miss any session will be encouraged to listen to the audio-recorded session via Zoom.

With encouragement of participants to read the article on the Strong Black Woman schema prior to the session, the first session, led by Rev. Dr.(Hon) Tammie Denyse, focuses on discussing the facets of the Strong Black Woman schema (i.e., suppress emotions related to cancer, prioritize caring for others over caring for the self, resist support from other people, present an image of strength, strive to achieve with insufficient resources) and challenging the harmful facets of the schema to promote self-compassion. The session will be based on the Gathering format used in the researchers' qualitative Project SOAR research, revised for therapeutic intent. With encouragement of participants to read two chapters of the book Homecoming prior to the session, the second session also will be led by Rev. Dr.(Hon) Tammie Denyse. The session will offer foundational psychoeducation and interactional exercises on managing traumatic and stressful experiences, drawing from the book Homecoming (Bryant, 2023). The third session will be led by Dr. Thea Hairston (beloveholistic.com). Dr. Hairston employs mindful movement exercises to promote self-compassion in Black American women. Conducted by Rev. Dr.(Hon) Denyse, the fourth session will summarize and reinforce the themes of prior sessions, including making an action plan for continuing to challenge the facets of the Strong Black Woman schema and enacting self-compassion.