Development and Evaluation of an Innovative Internet-Based Breast Cancer Psychosocial Intervention.

摘要

The purpose of this project is to develop and evaluate an Internet- based psychosocial intervention for women with primary breast cancer. During this funding period (10/1/00 to 9/31/01), the following tasks were completed: (1) 72 women were randomized to usual care (wait-list control group) or psychosocial support group. Three twelve-week Internet-based psychosocial groups (8-12 members per group) were facilitated with intervention group participants and two groups were facilitated with wait-list control group participants; (2) preliminary analyses on data collected from participants were completed; (3) preliminary text analyses of the support group messages were completed. Results: The initial analyses found that in comparison to wait-list control group participants, intervention group participants significantly reduced their depression, post-traumatic stress, and general stress scores. Significance: Women with primary breast cancer are able to participate in Internet-based psychosocial interventions and receive substantial benefits from their participation. The next phase of the project will be to complete enrollment into the intervention, analyze completed outcome data, and continue our exploration of ways to capture and understand the discourse that occurred in the groups.