Importance: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer have a high risk of poor psychosocial outcomes. The Promoting Resilience in Stress Management (PRISM) intervention is one of few psychosocial interventions targeting younger people with cancer that has demonstrated efficacy in a randomized clinical trial.
Objective: To explore 2-year trajectories of patient-reported well-being among AYA cancer survivors. The hypothesis was that AYAs who initially responded to PRISM would report sustained positive changes.
Design, setting, and participants: This secondary analysis of data from a single-center, parallel, phase 2 randomized clinical trial was conducted from January 2015 to October 2016. Eligible participants were English-speaking AYAs between ages 13 and 25 years with cancer treated at a single, quaternary children's hospital in the US. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to PRISM or usual care. Data were analyzed between March 2021 and June 2021.
Intervention: PRISM is a brief, skills-based coaching program targeting 4 resilience resources (stress management, goal setting, cognitive reframing, and meaning making).
Main outcomes and measures: Patient-reported cancer-related quality of life (QoL) (PedsQL scale), hope (Hope scale), resilience (Connor-Davidson Resilience scale), and psychological distress (Kessler-6 scale) were collected at baseline, 6, 12, and 24 months. Data from AYAs who remained alive at 24 months were analyzed. Improvement was defined as a positive change in instrument scores between baseline and 6 months (ie, the end of the PRISM program) and used linear mixed effects regression to assess changes over time.
Results: A total of 57 AYAs were included in analysis at 24 months (62% of 92 randomized). Twenty-six participants (46%) were female; 36 (63%) were between ages 13 and 17 years; and 20 (35%) identified as part of a racial or ethnic minority group (4 [7%] Asian, 11 [19%] Hispanic or Latino, 16 [28%] mixed race or other). PRISM was associated with improved QoL, hope, resilience, and distress between baseline and 6 months, and these associations were sustained for QoL over 12 months (β = 7.4; 95% CI, 0.8 to 14; P = .03) and hope throughout the study period (12 months: β = 6.2; 95% CI, 2.7 to 9.6; P < .001; 24 months: β = 4.6; 95% CI, 1 to 8.3; P = .01). Of those whose scores improved between baseline and 6 months, PRISM participants more commonly reported sustained improvements in QoL (16 of 21 participants [76%] vs 8 of 17 [47%]), hope (14 of 24 participants [58%] vs 6 of 14 [43%]), resilience (9 of 18 participants [50%] vs 4 of 14 [29%]), and distress (14 of 19 participants [74%] vs 6 of 19 [32%]) at 24 months compared with usual care.
Conclusions and relevance: These results suggest that PRISM was associated with sustained improvements in psychosocial outcomes as reported by adolescents and young adults. Those who responded to PRISM in the first 6 months reported continued well-being 2 years later.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02340884.