Giving and receiving thanks: a mixed methods pilot study of a gratitude intervention for palliative patients and their carers

BACKGROUND: Psychological research examining the nature and workings of gratitude has burgeoned over the past two decades. However, few studies have considered gratitude in the palliative care context. Based on an exploratory study which found that gratitude was correlated with better quality of life and less psychological distress in palliative patients, we designed and piloted a gratitude intervention where palliative patients and a carer of their choice wrote and shared a gratitude letter with each other. The aims of this study are to establish the feasibility and acceptability of our gratitude intervention and provide a preliminary assessment of its effects. METHODS: This pilot intervention study adopted a mixed-methods, concurrent nested, pre-post evaluation design. To assess the intervention’s effects, we employed quantitative questionnaires on quality of life, quality of relationship, psychological distress, and subjective burden, as well as semi-structured interviews. To assess feasibility, we considered patients and carers’ eligibility, participation and attrition rates, reasons for refusal to participate, appropriateness of intervention timeframe, modalities of participation, and barriers and facilitators. Acceptability was assessed through post-intervention satisfaction questionnaires. RESULTS: Thirty-nine participants completed the intervention and twenty-nine participated in interviews. We did not find any statistically significant pre/post intervention changes for patients, but found significant decrease in psychological distress for carers in terms of depression (median = 3 at T0, 1.5 at T1, p = .034) and total score (median = 13 at T0, 7.5 at T1, p = .041). Thematic analysis of interviews indicates that overall, the intervention had: (1) multiple positive outcomes for over a third of interviewees, in the form of positive emotional, cognitive, and relational effects; (2) single positive outcomes for nearly half of interviewees, who experienced emotional or cognitive effects; (3) no effect on two patients; and (4) negative emotional effects on two patients. Feasibility and acceptability indicators suggest that the intervention was well received by participants, and that it should adopt flexible modalities (e.g. writing or dictating a gratitude message) to ensure that it is feasible and adapted to individual needs and preferences. CONCLUSIONS: Larger scale deployment and evaluation of the gratitude intervention, including a control group, is warranted in order to have a more reliable evaluation of its effectiveness in palliative care. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12904-023-01172-x.