Partner-Assisted Emotional Disclosure for GI Cancer

描述(申请人提供)：癌症患者在向其配偶或亲密伴侣透露他们与癌症有关的感受和担忧时经常会遇到困难。这最终可能会损害患者的适应能力以及他们与伴侣的关系质量。情感表露(ED)是伴侣相互提供情感支持的核心组成部分。此外，研究发现，让个人在实验室环境中就压力经历进行私人ED可以产生心理和身体上的好处。然而，促进癌症患者和他们的伴侣之间的ED的潜在好处还没有被解决。这项拟议的研究旨在评估一种新的伴侣协助的情绪披露协议的有效性。200名晚期胃肠道癌症患者和他们的伴侣将被随机分配到两种情况之一：1)伴侣辅助的情绪披露，系统地培训患者和伴侣采取策略，促进患者的披露，并让患者有机会向伴侣谈论他们与癌症有关的关切；或2)癌症教育，向患者和伴侣提供关于癌症及其治疗的信息。在治疗前后和8周的随访中收集的评估措施将包括患者对心理适应、身体和功能健康、与伴侣的沟通质量、亲密程度和与伴侣的关系质量的报告；伴侣对心理调整、照顾者压力、沟通质量、与患者的亲密程度和关系质量的评分；以及医生对患者病情严重程度和医疗治疗记录和就医频率的评级。如果伴侣辅助的ED是有效的，未来的研究可能会在其他癌症人群(例如乳腺癌、前列腺癌)中评估这一方案。未来的研究还可以将合作伙伴协助的ED与私人ED方案进行比较，并确定最有可能从每种方法中受益的个人。这项研究可能会在我们理解情绪表露和情绪支持在癌症患者适应中的作用方面取得重大进展。如果成功，它可能会扩大我们有效增加社会支持和增进癌症患者及其伴侣福祉的方法的储备。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cancer patients often face difficulties disclosing their cancer-related feelings and concerns to their spouses or intimate partners. This may ultimately compromise patients' adjustment as well as the quality of their relationship with their partner. Emotional disclosure (ED) is a central component of the emotional support that partners provide to each other. In addition, having individuals engage in private ED about stressful experiences in a laboratory setting has been found to produce psychological and physical benefits. However, the potential benefits of facilitating ED between cancer patients and their partners have not been addressed. The proposed study seeks to evaluate the efficacy of a new partner-assisted emotional disclosure protocol. 200 patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer and their partners will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: 1) Partner-assisted emotional disclosure which systematically trains patients and partners in strategies to facilitate the patients' disclosure and gives the patient the opportunity to talk about their cancer-related concerns to the partner, or 2) Cancer education which provides patients and partners with information about cancer and its treatment. Assessment measures to be collected before and after treatment and at 8-weeks follow-up will include patients' reports of psychological adjustment, physical and functional well being, quality of communication with the partner, level of intimacy and quality of relationship with the partner; partners' ratings of psychological adjustment, caregiver strain, quality of communication, and level of intimacy and quality of relationship with the patient; and physician ratings of the patient's illness severity and documentation of medical treatments and frequency of medical visits. If partner-assisted ED is effective, future studies could evaluate this protocol in other cancer populations (e.g., breast cancer, prostate cancer). Future studies could also compare partner-assisted ED to a private ED protocol and identify individuals who are most likely to benefit from each approach. This study may lead to major advances in our understanding of the role of emotional disclosure and emotional support in the adjustment of cancer patients. If successful, it may enlarge our repertoire of methods for effectively increasing social support and enhancing the well being of both cancer patients and their partners.