Smartphone-Based Psychotherapeutic Interventions in Blended Care of Cancer Survivors: Nested Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract

BackgroundCancer is related to not only physical but also mental suffering. Notably, body image disturbances are highly relevant to cancer-related changes often persisting beyond recovery from cancer. Scalable and low-barrier interventions that can be blended with face-to-face psychotherapy for cancer survivors are highly warranted. ObjectiveThe aim of the study is to investigate whether smartphone-based bodily interventions are more effective to improve the mood of patients with cancer than smartphone-based fairy tale interventions (control intervention). MethodsWe recruited patients with cancer in 2 Swiss hospitals and conducted daily, fully automated smartphone-based interventions 6 times a week for 5 consecutive weeks, blended with weekly face-to-face group body psychotherapy. We applied 2 types of smartphone-based interventions using a within-subject design, randomly assigning patients daily to either bodily interventions or fairy tales. Each intervention type was presented 3 times a week. For this secondary analysis, 3-level mixed models were estimated with mood assessed by the 3 Multidimensional Mood Questionnaire subscales for good-bad mood, wakefulness, and calmness as key indicators. In addition, the effects on experience of presence, vitality, and burden assessed with visual analog scales were investigated. ResultsBased on the data from s=732 interventions performed by 36 participants, good-bad mood improved (β=.27; 95% CI 0.062-0.483), and participants became calmer (β=.98; 95% CI 0.740-1.211) following smartphone-based interventions. Wakefulness did not significantly change from pre- to postsmartphone–based intervention (β=.17; 95% CI –0.081 to 0.412). This was true for both intervention types. There was no interaction effect of intervention type with change in good-bad mood (β=–.01; 95% CI –0.439 to 0.417), calmness (β=.22; 95% CI –0.228 to 0.728), or wakefulness (β=.14; 95% CI –0.354 to 0.644). Experience of presence (β=.34; 95% CI 0.271-0.417) and vitality (β=.35; 95% CI 0.268-0.426) increased from pre- to postsmartphone–based intervention, while experience of burden decreased (β=–0.40; 95% CI –0.481 to 0.311). Again, these effects were present for both intervention types. There were no significant interaction effects of intervention type with pre- to postintervention changes in experience of presence (β=.14; 95% CI –0.104 to 0.384), experience of vitality (β=.06; 95% CI –0.152 to 0.265), and experience of burden (β=–.16; 95% CI –0.358 to 0.017). ConclusionsOur results suggest that both smartphone-based audio-guided bodily interventions and fairy tales have the potential to improve the mood of cancer survivors. Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT03707548; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03707548 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)RR2-10.1186/s40359-019-0357-1