StressProffen: Developing and Pilot Testing a Stress Management Intervention App for Patients With Cancer

Background/Purpose: A cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment can be traumatic and presents with a multitude of challenges and stressors. Psychosocial interventions have the potential to facilitate psychological adaptation and improved coping under such circumstances. However, for a variety of reasons such interventions are not always available or attainable. To address this issue, this project combines well-established stress-management interventions for patients with cancer with cutting edge computerized technology, creating an innovative and accessible app-based cognitive behavioral stress management intervention (i.e., StressProffen) available for cancer patients. Phase I (design, development and pilot testing) in this project will be presented. Methods: The study employs participatory and service design and the intervention app is developed in close collaboration between health care personnel, cancer patients (i.e., users), behavioral scientists, eHealth specialists and IT designers/developers. All intervention content is anchored in evidence based stress management psychosocial oncology interventions. Design and development is complete and pilot testing will be complete December 2016. Pilot testing involves adult Norwegians (N=20) representing the most common cancer diagnoses in Norway (i.e., breast-, prostate-, lung-, colon-, bladder-, ovarian-, or skin cancer). Results: Qualitative results will be reported on design, development and pilot testing. Quantitative results will be reported on the pilot test. Conclusion and Implications: Psychosocial interventions for cancer patients are not always available. This study has designed, developed and is pilot testing (Phase I) an intervention app; StressProffen, for stress management in cancer. Phase II will test the app with repeated measures in a randomized controlled trial, examining impact on stress, distress, quality of life, self-regulation and health behaviors. If effective, the intervention app has the potential to improve or maintain well-being, self-management and sense of self-control for patients living with cancer. The intervention can provide extensive outreach, improved flexibility and high accessibility for a diverse group of cancer patients.