The overall goal of this four-year project is to test a telephone-based educational counseling and support intervention that targets breast cancer survivors. This randomized controlled trial will occur within one of the largest NCI-designated clinical cooperative oncology groups in the country, the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG). The intervention will be delivered by the existing Cancer Information and Counseling Line (CICL) of the AMC Cancer Research Center, which also houses the Operations Office of ECOG. Specific objectives are: 1) To finalize the design of the intervention, in which CICL experts will call survivors 16 times over a 12 month period according to a pre-arranged schedule. The telephone outcalls from the CICL will be accompanied by mailouts of six thematic modules addressing key survivorship issues and concerns; 2) To pilot the intervention with a vanguard group of breast cancer survivors from the Denver area; and 3) To implement and evaluate the educational counseling and support intervention in four major breast cancer treatment centers across the U.S. (Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, and Boston) using a randomized two-group design (intervention versus control). The primary outcome measures will be quality of life, sexual functioning, and self-reported survivorship concerns (including fear of recurrence). The intervention and outcome measurement have been standardized, with assessment planned at baseline, 6, 12, 18, and 24 month follow-up. Specific hypothesis to be tested are that compared to survivors in the control condition, those in the treatment condition will have: (a) higher quality of life, (b) higher sexual functioning, and (c) reduced survivorship concerns (including reduced fear of recurrence). After completion of the study a final report to the National Cancer Institute will summarize major findings and, if the intervention is shown to be effective, implementation and diffusion of the intervention within ECOG and possibly other cooperative groups will be facilitated.
| Marcus, Alfred C; Garrett, Kathleen M; Cella, David et al. (2010) Can telephone counseling post-treatment improve psychosocial outcomes among early stage breast cancer survivors? Psychooncology 19:923-32 |
| Wenzel, L B; Fairclough, D L; Brady, M J et al. (1999) Age-related differences in the quality of life of breast carcinoma patients after treatment. Cancer 86:1768-74 |
| Marcus, A C; Garrett, K M; Cella, D et al. (1998) Telephone counseling of breast cancer patients after treatment: a description of a randomized clinical trial. Psychooncology 7:470-82 |
