A Self-Help Guided Psychoeducational Intervention for Indonesian Women with Breast Cancer Symptoms: Development and Pilot Feasibility Study

BACKGROUND: Delay in the diagnosis of breast cancer (BC) may lead to an advanced stage of the disease and a poor prognosis. A psychoeducational intervention can be crucial in helping women with BC symptoms complete the examination procedures and reduce diagnosis delay of BC. OBJECTIVE: To develop a psychoeducational intervention to reduce the delay of BC diagnosis among Indonesian women with BC symptoms. METHODS: The development of the intervention included an inventory of crucial elements in developing psychoeducation through literature review as well as consultation with BC patients and healthcare providers. Additionally, we developed PERANTARA as the first pilot version of the self-help guided psychoeducational intervention. PERANTARA is an abbreviation for “Pengantar Perawatan Kesehatan Payadura”, which means an introduction to breast health treatment. The pilot feasibility study combined an expert review and a pilot testing in hospital settings. A semi-structured interview and the client satisfaction inventory were utilized to measure feasibility and acceptability of the intervention for Indonesian women with BC symptoms. RESULTS: PERANTARA contained an oncologist’s explanation about BC and the BC survivors’ testimony to reduce the time to diagnosis. The pilot study results showed that most patients were satisfied with and trusted on PERANTARA. CONCLUSION: PERANTARA was feasible and acceptable for Indonesian patients with BC symptoms. The development framework suggested in this study can be applied to develop psychoeducational packages for other patients group, in particular, those interventional packages aimed at reducing diagnosis and treatment delays and non-adherence.