CN69 - The effect of an empowerment program on ruminative thoughts, fatigue and psychological resilience of cancer survivors: A randomized controlled trial

Background

Cancer is a disease that mostly divides individuals' lives into two parts, before and after the disease, and can cause psychosocial and physiological problems. Therefore, cancer survivors may struggle with intrusive rumination and cancer-related fatigue, which can be prevented or reduced by the presence of deliberate rumination and psychological resilience. However, there is a dearth of literature on how an empowerment program influences ruminations, cancer-related fatigue, and psychological resilience among cancer survivors.

Methods

This randomized-controlled study is conducted to evaluate the effect of the developed empowerment program ruminations, cancer-related fatigue, and psychological resilience in cancer survivors. The empowerment program was carried out with a total of 57 cancer survivors, 28 in the intervention group and 29 in the control group, via the online Zoom platform. The program lasted 10 weeks, each session lasting an average of 90 minutes. Data were collected with the Event-Related Rumination Inventory, the Cancer Fatigue Scale, and the Connor-Davidson Psychological Resilience Scale. The data were analysed with repeated measures analysis of variance, chi-square test, and t-test on the SPSS 26.0 software program.

Results

The average age of participants in the intervention group was 49.00±9.00 years, and in the control group was 49.27±9.41 years. Significant differences were observed between the groups in intrusive rumination (F = 7.111, P = .010), cancer-related fatigue total score (F = 5.359, P = .024), and psychological resilience total score (F = 4.191, P = .045). Group-by-time interactions showed significant differences in intrusive rumination (F = 6.414, p = .003), deliberate rumination (F = 10.089, p < 0.001), cancer-related fatigue total score (F = 6.362, p = .003), and psychological resilience total score (F = 3.749, p = .030).

Conclusions

The implemented empowerment program has been found effective in reducing intrusive ruminations and cancer-related fatigue while increasing deliberate ruminations and psychological resilience.

Clinical trial identification

NCT05768984.

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.