Personality Feedback With Tailored Self-Care Recommendations Improves Self-Efficacy for Cancer Management: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Objective: To test whether a personality feedback intervention improves three domains of cancer self-management: self-awareness, self-efficacy, and positive affect.

Methods: From 11/2020-02/2021, 372 adults diagnosed with cancer participated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of an intervention that entailed reading a brief personality-related excerpt during an online survey. Eligibility included self-reported age ≥ 18 years, current or past cancer diagnosis, and ability to read English.

Barriers, blocks, and barricades: Disparities to access of palliative care in cancer care.

Palliative care (PC) is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. PC models have stressed pain and symptom management, communication that is patient- and family-centric and longitudinal support for families living with serious illness that is contiguous across multiple settings. Despite the benefits that PC provides from a patient, family and quality of care standpoint, several barriers and disparities exist.

Personality and Self-efficacy for Illness Management in Cancer.

Objectives: Self-efficacy for illness management is increasingly recognized as important for outcomes in cancer. We examined whether The Big Five personality dimensions were associated with self-efficacy for illness management and hypothesized that patients who were less neurotic and more conscientious would have better self-efficacy.

Methods: Adults with cancer completed a cross-sectional survey that included the Mini-International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) and three subscales of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Self-Efficacy for Chronic Conditions: managing emotions, managing symptoms, and managing treatment and medication.

Patient-Caregiver Dyads & End-of-Life Care: Caregiver Personality Disrupts Gender-Based Norms.

Context: Gender and personality may individually impact end-of-life care. Men often receive more aggressive treatments than women near death, and personality - particularly openness - may be associated with increased care utilization when it diverges from traditional treatment norms. However, research has not examined the interaction of these variables in a dyadic context.

Cultivating community-based participatory research (CBPR) to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic: an illustrative example of partnership and topic prioritization in the food services industry.

Background: As an illustrative example of COVID-19 pandemic community-based participatory research (CBPR), we describe a community-academic partnership to prioritize future research most important to people experiencing high occupational exposure to COVID-19 - food service workers. Food service workers face key challenges surrounding (1) health and safety precautions, (2) stress and mental health, and (3) the long-term pandemic impact.

Method: Using CBPR methodologies, academic scientists partnered with community stakeholders to develop the research aims, methods, and measures, and interpret and disseminate results.

Emotional distress predicts palliative cancer care attitudes: The unique role of anger.

Objective: Although palliative care can mitigate emotional distress, distressed patients may be less likely to engage in timely palliative care. This study aims to investigate the role of emotional distress in palliative care avoidance by examining the associations of anger, anxiety, and depression with palliative care attitudes.

Methods: Patients (N = 454) with heterogeneous cancer diagnoses completed an online survey on emotional distress and palliative care attitudes.

Palliative Care TikTok: Describing the Landscape and Explaining Social Media Engagement.

Although palliative care programs are beneficial to patients and families, most of the public is unfamiliar with and underutilizes palliative services. TikTok, a fast-growing social media platform worldwide, allows users to share short live-recorded videos and could be used to educate the public about palliative care. This study characterized palliative care TikTok videos and determined characteristics associated with higher user engagement metrics (views, likes, comments, and shares).

Application of Terror Management Theory to End-Of-Life Care Decision-Making: A Narrative Literature Review.

Patients with serious illnesses often do not engage in discussions about end-of-life care decision-making, or do so reluctantly. These discussions can be useful in facilitating advance care planning and connecting patients to services such as palliative care that improve quality of life. Terror Management Theory, a social psychology theory stating that humans are motivated to resolve the discomfort surrounding their inevitable death, has been discussed in the psychology literature as an underlying basis of human decision-making and behavior.

Patient, caregiver, and oncologist predictions of quality of life in advanced cancer: Accuracy and associations with end-of-life care and caregiver bereavement.

Background: Informed treatment decision-making necessitates accurate prognostication, including predictions about quality of life.

Aims: We examined whether oncologists, patients with advanced cancer, and caregivers accurately predict patients' future quality of life and whether these predictions are prospectively associated with end-of-life care and bereavement.

Materials & Methods: We conducted secondary analyses of clinical trial data.

Scenario planning: a framework for mitigating uncertainty in implementing strategic behavioral medicine initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Scenario planned provides a useful framework for scientists proposing and implementing new projects during the COVID-19 pandemic and other uncertain events.”

Fear of Palliative Care: Roles of Age and Depression Severity.

Palliative care is underutilized due in part to fear and misunderstanding, and depression might explain variation in fear of palliative care. Informed by the socioemotional selectivity theory, we hypothesized that older adults with cancer would be less depressed than younger adults, and subsequently less fearful of utilizing palliative care. Patients predominately located in the United States with heterogeneous cancer diagnoses ( = 1095) completed the Patient-Reported Outcomes Information System (PROMIS) Depression scale and rated their fear of palliative care using the Palliative Care Attitudes Scale (PCAS).

Increasing Readiness for Early Integrated Palliative Oncology Care: Development and Initial Evaluation of the EMPOWER 2 Intervention.

Context: Early integrated palliative care improves quality of life, but palliative care programs are underutilized. Psychoeducational interventions explaining palliative care may increase patients' readiness for palliative care.

Objectives: To 1) collaborate with stakeholders to develop the EMPOWER 2 intervention explaining palliative care, 2) examine acceptability, 3) evaluate feasibility and preliminary efficacy.