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Couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Young breast cancer survivors (aged 50 years and under) and their partners are at an elevated risk for relationship distress and poor psychological adjustment relative to older age couples. Limited availability of time and resources and the distance to travel are major barriers to engagi...

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Autores principales: Fergus, Karen, Ahmad, Saunia, McLeod, Deborah L, Stephen, Joanne, Gardner, Sandra, Pereira, Amanda, Warner, Ellen, Carter, Wendy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4336511/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25630357
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-014-0534-8
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author Fergus, Karen
Ahmad, Saunia
McLeod, Deborah L
Stephen, Joanne
Gardner, Sandra
Pereira, Amanda
Warner, Ellen
Carter, Wendy
author_facet Fergus, Karen
Ahmad, Saunia
McLeod, Deborah L
Stephen, Joanne
Gardner, Sandra
Pereira, Amanda
Warner, Ellen
Carter, Wendy
author_sort Fergus, Karen
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Young breast cancer survivors (aged 50 years and under) and their partners are at an elevated risk for relationship distress and poor psychological adjustment relative to older age couples. Limited availability of time and resources and the distance to travel are major barriers to engaging in evidence-based psychosocial support programs. This paper describes the study protocol of a novel, manualized online intervention called Couplelinks that was developed to improve relationship adjustment and psychological wellbeing of young couples affected by breast cancer. Couplelinks is a custom-designed website offering a professionally facilitated, couple-centered intervention that entails informational, experiential, and interactive components. METHODS/DESIGN: A total of 80 heterosexual couples from across Canada in which the female partner has been diagnosed with a primary breast cancer will be recruited and randomized to a treatment or waitlist control group. Six dyadic learning modules form the core of the program and will be undertaken on a weekly basis. The manualized online intervention involves psycho-education and experiential exercises to enhance communication, coping ability, mutual empathy, and perspective-taking in relation to cancer. An online facilitator who is a trained mental health professional will guide and support couples throughout the process. Data collection will occur at baseline, at post-treatment or eight weeks into the waiting period, and at the three-month follow-up assessment. Primary outcome measures include the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Survey (RDAS) and Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI) scores, and secondary outcome measures include the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Survey (HADS) score. DISCUSSION: Couplelinks is one of the first internet-based psychological interventions to improve the psychosocial adjustment of couples coping with a life-threatening illness such as cancer. If successful, the design of this program as described in this paper makes a valuable contribution to the literature on the delivery of couple-focused psychosocial interventions, both within and outside of oncology. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (identifier: NCT01089764) on 17 March 2010.
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spelling pubmed-43365112015-02-22 Couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial Fergus, Karen Ahmad, Saunia McLeod, Deborah L Stephen, Joanne Gardner, Sandra Pereira, Amanda Warner, Ellen Carter, Wendy Trials Study Protocol BACKGROUND: Young breast cancer survivors (aged 50 years and under) and their partners are at an elevated risk for relationship distress and poor psychological adjustment relative to older age couples. Limited availability of time and resources and the distance to travel are major barriers to engaging in evidence-based psychosocial support programs. This paper describes the study protocol of a novel, manualized online intervention called Couplelinks that was developed to improve relationship adjustment and psychological wellbeing of young couples affected by breast cancer. Couplelinks is a custom-designed website offering a professionally facilitated, couple-centered intervention that entails informational, experiential, and interactive components. METHODS/DESIGN: A total of 80 heterosexual couples from across Canada in which the female partner has been diagnosed with a primary breast cancer will be recruited and randomized to a treatment or waitlist control group. Six dyadic learning modules form the core of the program and will be undertaken on a weekly basis. The manualized online intervention involves psycho-education and experiential exercises to enhance communication, coping ability, mutual empathy, and perspective-taking in relation to cancer. An online facilitator who is a trained mental health professional will guide and support couples throughout the process. Data collection will occur at baseline, at post-treatment or eight weeks into the waiting period, and at the three-month follow-up assessment. Primary outcome measures include the Revised Dyadic Adjustment Survey (RDAS) and Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI) scores, and secondary outcome measures include the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Survey (HADS) score. DISCUSSION: Couplelinks is one of the first internet-based psychological interventions to improve the psychosocial adjustment of couples coping with a life-threatening illness such as cancer. If successful, the design of this program as described in this paper makes a valuable contribution to the literature on the delivery of couple-focused psychosocial interventions, both within and outside of oncology. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (identifier: NCT01089764) on 17 March 2010. BioMed Central 2015-01-29 /pmc/articles/PMC4336511/ /pubmed/25630357 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-014-0534-8 Text en © Fergus et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Study Protocol
Fergus, Karen
Ahmad, Saunia
McLeod, Deborah L
Stephen, Joanne
Gardner, Sandra
Pereira, Amanda
Warner, Ellen
Carter, Wendy
Couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
title Couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
title_full Couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
title_fullStr Couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
title_full_unstemmed Couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
title_short Couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
title_sort couplelinks - an online intervention for young women with breast cancer and their male partners: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
topic Study Protocol
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4336511/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25630357
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-014-0534-8
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