A Research Study for Latina Women Undergoing Breast Cancer Treatment

Among Hispanics, the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority group in the U.S., cancer is the leading cause of death whereas cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs). Hispanics also experience substantially lower rates of 5-year cancer-specific survival relative to non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs). Hispanic cancer patients in the U.S. also report significantly worse cancer-related symptom burden and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) than NHWs, even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors.

Despite this, very few randomized, intervention studies have specifically targeted cancer-related symptom burden and HRQOL outcomes among Hispanic women, especially during active treatment, which is a critical period to intervene to provide skills and tools to assist with cancer care. Innovative approaches to providing interventions such as Smartphone technology are especially important for this patient population. Ubiquitous Smartphone use among ethnic minorities in the US provide a unique opportunity to implement a pragmatic technology- and evidence-based psychosocial intervention that overcomes some access to care barriers as well as time and logistical constraints. Furthermore, given that Hispanics own Smartphones and seek health information online from a mobile device at similar or higher rates than other groups in the U.S., Smartphone interventions offer an opportunity to overcome obstacles to accessing resources and services that can be culturally informed and provide skills to improve symptom burden and HRQOL.

This study aims to create and evaluate a culturally informed eHealth psychoeducational and psychosocial intervention for English or Spanish-speaking Hispanic women undergoing treatment for breast cancer. This intervention is grounded in evidence-based paradigms to improve the proposed Primary Outcomes: Cancer-Related Symptom Burden and HRQOL and the proposed Secondary Outcomes: usability and markers the intervention use. This study is designed to develop and test a Smartphone-based intervention that can be disseminated to cancer patients at a relatively low cost. This study designed as a 12-week randomized trial intended to evaluate the eHealth intervention when compared to a control condition. It is hypothesized that the eHealth intervention will significantly improve cancer-related symptom burden and HRQOL compared to the control condition.

Inclusion criteria

• Female
• Diagnosis of breast cancer, non-metastatic, stage 0-IIIA; for women diagnosed with stage 0, either radiation or chemotherapy is required as an additional treatment to surgery
• Currently undergoing cancer treatment [e.g., surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or combination of the two or three]
• at least 21 years of age
• Able to speak and read English or Spanish
• Able to provide informed consent
• Elevated score on breast cancer symptom burden and HRQoL, measured by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast questionnaire using an established cut-off score for clinically meaningful, compromised HRQoL
• Self-identified Hispanic/Latina ethnicity.

Exclusion criteria

• Visual, hearing, voice, or motor impairment that would prevent completion of study procedures
• diagnosis of an unmanaged psychotic disorder, bipolar disorder, dissociative disorder, or other diagnosis for which participation in this trial is either inappropriate or dangerous - this includes patients who have life-threatening illness (e.g., end-stage kidney disease) or diagnosis of a chronic disease that is associated with a major functional impairment (e.g., fibromyalgia)
• Illicit substance or alcohol dependence
• Suicidal ideation, plan, intent
• Alzheimer's, dementia or history of stroke
• Scheduled reconstruction surgery within 1 month of any study procedures or involvement.