Individual Abstract within a Delegate Designed Symposium 2025 Joint Meeting of the COSA ASM and IPOS Congress

What are the benefits of online, group-based psychosocial support for adolescent and young adult cancer survivors? Outcomes from the community-delivered Recapture Life intervention program (126578)

Ursula M Sansom-Daly 1 2 3 , Elin Irestorm 1 4 , Kate Hetherington 1 2 , Brittany C McGill 1 2 , Holly E Evans 1 2 , Fiona McDonald 5 6 , Pandora Patterson 7 8 , Annette Beattie 9 , Jessica Buster 1 2 , David Ziegler 2 10 , Antoinette Anazodo 2 10 , Joanne Shaw 11 , Haryana Dhillon 11 , Richard J Cohn 1 2 , Claire E Wakefield 1 12
  1. Behavioural Sciences Unit, Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick, NSW, Australia
  2. School of Clinical Medicine, UNSW Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Kensington, NSW, Australia
  3. Sydney Youth Cancer Service, Prince of Wales/Sydney Children's Hospitals, Randwick, NSW, Australia
  4. Faculty of Medicine, Department of Paediatrics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
  5. Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  6. CanTeen Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  7. Community First Step, Fairfield, NSW, Australia
  8. Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  9. Cancer Council NSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  10. Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick, NSW, Australia
  11. School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  12. Division of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University and Stanford Medicine Children's Health, Palo Alto, California, USA

Objectives/Purpose: Adolescent and young adult cancer survivors (AYAs) have significant psychological needs and require tailored support following cancer treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of the online, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), “Recapture Life” (RL) group-program to improve AYAs’ psychological adjustment in early cancer survivorship, when delivered in the community.

Sample/Settings: AYAs aged 13-39 years were invited by three partnering cancer-support organisations to take part in the adapted RL intervention. The intervention was delivered in community settings, by trained psychosocial staff already embedded at these organisations.

Procedures: RL participants received seven CBT-based online sessions (six weekly 90-minute group sessions, and a booster session 6-weeks later). Participants completed patient-reported outcome measures at intake, and 6-months post-intervention. Measures assessed psychological distress, perceived cancer-related problems, peer-support, and program benefit/burden.

Results: Thirty 13–39-year-olds with mixed cancer diagnoses completed both assessment timepoints (80% solid tumours, 13% blood, 7% brain cancers; mean=2.9 years post-diagnosis). We did not find evidence to indicate that RL reduced psychological distress. However, 6-months after completing RL, AYAs reported almost five fewer cancer-related problems (t(29)=2.63, p=.003) and perceived significantly improved peer-support (t(29)=8.04, p=.015), with medium effect sizes. Most participants reported no program burden (72%) and found RL at least somewhat beneficial (79%). Most (73%) reported staying in contact with AYAs from their group post-intervention.

Conclusion and clinical implications: Overall, RL delivered in the community appears to address areas of concern for AYAs, and may teach adaptive skills for survivors adjusting to life beyond cancer treatment. However, given that this trial did not find significant reductions in distress, our team is now undertaking co-design work to understand how RL can be adapted to better address the specific needs of AYAs with particular diagnoses – including brain cancer survivors, a vulnerable sub-group under-represented in this study, who experience additional psychosocial challenges.