Key takeaways:
- The app improved high quality of life, caregiving burden, despair and PTSD signs, and coping expertise amongst caregivers of sufferers present process HSCT.
- A multisite trial is deliberate to evaluate the app’s scalability.
CHICAGO — Use of a psychosocial digital app improved high quality of life, caregiving burden, despair and PTSD signs, and coping expertise for caregivers of sufferers present process hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, in line with analysis.
The findings had been introduced at ASCO Annual Assembly.
“Affected person care is at all times on the forefront however we’ve observed, particularly as of late, that household caregivers don’t get fairly the identical quantity of consideration as sufferers, which is shocking contemplating that they’ll expertise nervousness and despair at greater charges than sufferers themselves,” Jamie M. Jacobs, PhD, program director for the Middle for Psychiatric Oncology and Behavioral Sciences and director of the caregiving analysis program at Massachusetts Common Hospital and affiliate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical College, instructed Healio.
“They’re themselves in danger for not simply psychological well being points, but additionally bodily well being points, as a result of they usually neglect their very own self-care and bodily well being wants.”
Regardless of these considerations, restricted interventions exist to deal with the wants of caregivers, in line with examine background.
Jacobs and colleagues performed a single-center, randomized trial to evaluate the efficacy of the self-guided BMT-CARE app in enhancing high quality of life, burden, temper signs, coping expertise and self-efficacy of caregivers of sufferers present process HSCT.
The app contains 5 modules that incorporate psychoeducation, evidence-based conduct change and stress administration, delivered by way of interactive options, academic video games and movies.
A earlier model of BMT-CARE was designed as a clinician-delivered intervention, through which caregivers would meet with skilled therapists for six one-on-one periods, Jacobs stated.
“We knew this to be a really potent intervention, however we additionally knew that it wasn’t a really scalable intervention,” she stated. “Transplant facilities are restricted with their assets to offer a clinical-delivered intervention like this.
“Caregivers additionally described that, though they actually needed and wanted one thing like this, it was a burden to need to attend the periods due to all the opposite pulls on their time … The digital intervention that we developed for this examine was to deal with that downside of scalability and the feasibility to caregivers.”
The examine included 125 grownup caregivers (median age, 58.7 years) of sufferers with hematologic malignancies present process autologous or allogeneic HSCT at a tertiary care middle between February 2023 and July 2024. Almost three-quarters of the caregivers (71.2%) had been spouses.
Researchers randomly assigned 62 caregivers to the BMT-CARE app and 63 to traditional care. These within the intervention arm used the app previous to HSCT and as much as 60 days after.
All contributors self-reported high quality of life, caregiving burden, nervousness and despair signs, PTSD, coping expertise and self-efficacy at baseline and day 60.
High quality of life at day 60, assessed by way of the CareGiver Oncology QOL questionnaire, served as the first endpoint.
Outcomes confirmed that caregivers assigned to the BMT-CARE app utilized it for a imply 133.2 minutes.
Sixty days after HSCT, caregivers within the intervention arm reported considerably higher high quality of life in contrast with these assigned to traditional care (76.2 vs. 69.9; P = .006).
Those that used the app additionally reported decreased caregiving burden (11.2 vs. 12.3; P = .024) and signs of despair (3.8 vs. 5.6; P = .002 ) and PTSD (26 vs. 31.3; P = .011), in addition to improved coping expertise (33.9 vs. 28.2; P = .003).
The 2 arms didn’t differ considerably in nervousness signs or self-efficacy at day 60.
Shifting ahead, Jacobs stated her workforce is planning a multisite trial to broaden the demographic and geographic range of their pattern of caregivers, whereas additionally studying extra concerning the true scalability of the digital intervention.
For extra data:
Jamie M. Jacobs, PhD, could be reached at jjacobs@mgh.harvard.edu.
Sources/Disclosures
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Jacobs JM, et al. Summary 11000. Offered at: ASCO Annual Assembly; Could 30-June 3, 2025; Chicago.
Disclosures:
Jacobs reviews consulting/advisory roles with OncoveryCare, Reunion Neuroscience and VivorCare, and analysis funding from BlueNote. Please see the examine for all different authors’ related monetary disclosures.
