• Chris Lo, Sarah Hales, Judy Jung, Aubrey Chiu, Tania Panday, Anne Rydall, Rinat Nissim, Carmine Malfitano, Danielle Petricone-Westwood, Camilla Zimmermann, and Gary Rodin.
• 1Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
• Palliat Med. 2014 Mar 1;28(3):234-42.

BackgroundAdvanced cancer brings substantial physical and psychosocial challenges that may contribute to emotional distress and diminish well-being. In this study, we present preliminary data concerning the effectiveness of a new brief individual psychotherapy, Managing Cancer And Living Meaningfully (CALM), designed to help individuals cope with this circumstance.AimTo test the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of CALM to reduce emotional distress and promote psychological well-being and growth.DesignCALM is a brief, manualized, semi-structured individual psychotherapy for patients with advanced cancer. This study employed a phase 2 intervention-only design. The primary outcome was depressive symptoms and the secondary outcomes were death anxiety, attachment security, spiritual well-being and psychological growth. These were assessed at 3 months (t1) and 6 months (t2). Multilevel regression was used to model change over time.Setting/ParticipantsA total of 50 patients with advanced or metastatic cancer were recruited from the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada.ResultsA total of 39 patients (78%) were assessed at baseline, 24 (48%) at t1, and 16 (32%) at t2. Analyses revealed reductions over time in depressive symptoms: beta = -0.13, confidence interval (CI.95) = (-0.23, -0.022) and death anxiety: beta = -0.23, CI.95 (-0.40, -0.061); and an increase in spiritual well-being: beta = 0.14, CI.95 (0.026, 0.26).ConclusionsCALM may be a feasible intervention to benefit patients with advanced cancer. The results are encouraging, despite attrition and small effect sizes, and support further study.

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