Psycho-oncology
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Dignity therapy (DT) has been developed to help reduce distress experienced by people nearing the end of life; however, evaluations of this novel intervention have largely involved non-distressed samples. ⋯ The extent to which DT can help these patients and their families, either as a stand-alone therapy or as an adjunct to other therapies, needs to be determined in studies focussing on distressed patients, particularly those with problems likely to be helped by the therapy.
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We examined differences in distress levels and Distress Thermometer (DT) cutoff scores between different cancer types. The effect of socio-demographic and illness-related variables on distress was also examined. ⋯ Distress and cutoff score in prostate cancer patients were lower than in patients with other cancer types. Additionally, younger women and patients receiving treatment other than surgery only or 'wait and see' are at risk for higher distress. These results can help identify patients possibly in need of referral to professional psychosocial and/or allied health care.
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The study aims to provide information about variance components of psychosocial outcomes: within and between-participant variance, within-participant correlation and for cluster randomised trials, the intra-cluster correlation (ICC) and, also, to demonstrate how estimates of these variance components and ICCs can be used to design randomised trials and cluster randomised trials. ⋯ Although the magnitude of variance components and ICCs used for sample-size calculation cannot be known in advance of the study, published estimates can help reduce the uncertainty in sample-size calculations. Psycho-oncology researchers should be conservative in their sample-size calculations and use approaches that improve efficiency in their design and analysis.
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The health status and psychosocial well-being of multiple primary cancer (MPC) survivors are under-researched. ⋯ Multiple primary cancer survivors reported a poorer health status and, in general, experienced a greater negative impact of cancer on their psychosocial well-being than single primary cancer survivors.