Clinical trial NCT03964116: Impact of Sick Peer Relation on Adaptation to Disease and on Treatment of Cancer-suffering Adolescents & Young Adults
Official title: Impact of Sick Peer Relation on the Adaptation to Disease and on Treatment of Cancer-suffering Adolescents and Young Adults (PEERS-AYA)
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Cancer
Adolescent Behavior
Young Adult
Lead sponsor: Institut Curie
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: University of Paris 5 - Rene Descartes
First posted: 2019-05-28
Enrollment: 100
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 15
Maximum age (years): 27
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: Adolescents and young adults (AYA) with cancer have to deal with a relatively segmented organization of care between pediatric and adult medicine structures in France. However, the third french Plan Cancer 2014-2019 helped in the recognition of the specificities of the AYA affected by cancer and allowed the creation of specific structures in some care units in France, whose primary goal is the preservation of the social link.

Indeed, peer relations contribute to access to quality social support, which is an important variable in patient adjustment with cancer. The adolescents that perceive higher social support report less psychological distress and exhibit higher adaptation scores.

It nevertheless happens that AYA experience negative social support, often from friends because of contact reduction during the disease. Patients can then elect to turn towards non-intimate relations such as support groups. The main risk when a AYA with cancer defines a sick peer as one bringing him quality social support is the installation of a sense of guilt, for example, when a young person is confronted with disease negative progress or with peer death. The more an adolescent identifies with the deceased, the more he is able to consider his own mortality.

AYA units are developing in France, creating a community of sick adolescents. These communities are precious for AYA and allow information and experience sharing, a feeling of reduced isolation and a greater emotional closeness with peers suffering from the same disease.

How is social support from peers and close friends perceived by these young people in AYA units and through the social networks? What can the consequences of the evolution of peer disease be on AYA? What is the impact of the mourning of sick peers on these young people? What are the predictors?

Detailed description: Methodology: Multicentric, prospective, not randomized study.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

1. Adolescents or young adults from 15 to 27 years old (included) receiving cancer diagnose or recurrence announcement.
2. Patient information and free consent signature by the patient or his legal representative(s).

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Patient with any psychological, familial, sociological or geographical condition potentially hampering compliance with the study protocol.
2. Inability to understand, talk or write in French.
3. Patient individually deprived of liberty or placed under the authority of a tutor.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Social support on patients psychological adjustment
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Social support on patients psychological adjustment
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Social support on patients psychological adjustment
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Psychological adjustment & quality
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Psychological adjustment & quality
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Predictors of the grief quality
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Predictors of the grief quality
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Predictors of the grief quality
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Grief phenomenon (real or virtual life)
timeFrame: 4 years
measure: Grief phenomenon (real or virtual life)
timeFrame: 4 years
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Paris
country: France
facility: INSTITUT CURIE - site Paris
state: Ile De France
city: Lyon
country: France
facility: Centre Leon Berard
Study officials:
affiliation: Institut Curie Paris
name: Valérie LAURENCE, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: Université René Descartes, Paris
name: Cécile FLAHAULT, PhD
role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
References:
citation: Phan J, Vander Haegen M, Karsenti L, Laurence V, Marec-Berard P, Cordero C, Thisse A, Riberon C, Flahault C. Psychological Adjustment, Adaptation, and Perception of Social Support in French Adolescents and Young Adults After the Diagnosis of Cancer. J Adolesc Young Adult Oncol. 2023 Jun;12(3):389-397. doi: 10.1089/jayao.2022.0034. Epub 2022 Sep 6.