Clinical trial NCT01416779: A Finding Balance Writing Intervention for Older Bereaved Caregivers
Official title: Finding Balance: The Experience of Hope for Bereaved Caregivers of Palliative Cancer Patients
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Grief
Keywords: Writing Intervention
Bereaved Caregivers
Older Adults
hope
inventory of daily widowed life
Lead sponsor: University of Saskatchewan
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation
First posted: 2011-08-15
Enrollment: 23
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 60
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Brief summary: The overall purpose of this study is to develop and pilot-test a theory-based psychosocial supportive "finding balance" intervention for older, bereaved spousal caregivers of a palliative cancer patient.

Detailed description: Research devoted to determining the efficacy of bereavement interventions remains a top priority. The development of theory-based, acceptable and feasible psychosocial interventions would begin to address the needs of family caregivers. A prominent theory of coping with bereavement, Stroebe and Schut's Dual Process Model, describes oscillation between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping; having a balance between these processes predicted more positive outcomes for older bereaved spouses. Similarly, the process of "finding balance" emerged as a first step in the search for new hope in the PI's grounded theory research with older bereaved family caregivers. They described the importance and difficulty of "finding balance" as they recovered from caregiving and struggled to find a new meaning and purpose for their lives after the loss of a spouse to cancer. An intervention focused on "finding balance" provides an innovative and promising approach to guiding the development of a theory-based psychosocial intervention for family caregivers who become bereaved. In clinical work a highly focused writing intervention has shown important benefits (personal communication, Dr. Robert Neimeyer, March 4, 2009). A validated tool to measure the effectiveness of an intervention to find balance does not exist, however valid existing measures of hope, grief, and an inventory of balance based on the Dual Process Model will be used as proxies. Therefore, the overall purpose of this study is to develop and pilot-test a theory-based psychosocial supportive "finding balance" intervention for older, bereaved spousal caregivers of a palliative cancer patient.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* women and men, ages 60 and over, who previously resided with and provided care for a spouse with terminal cancer who died within the last year, English speaking, and freely consenting to be involved in the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

* will be those cognitively impaired, non-autonomous, or not able to give a free and informed consent, as determined by the registered nurse research assistant on initial contact.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Grief
timeFrame: 2 weeks
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Saskatoon
country: Canada
facility: University of Saskatchewan
state: Saskatchewan
Study officials:
References:
citation: Holtslander LF, Bally JM, Steeves ML. Walking a fine line: an exploration of the experience of finding balance for older persons bereaved after caregiving for a spouse with advanced cancer. Eur J Oncol Nurs. 2011 Jul;15(3):254-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ejon.2010.12.004. Epub 2011 Jan 17.