Abstract The Internet-based psychotherapeutic intervention Onco-STEP for adolescent and young adult (AYA)-aged survivors of pediatric cancer was developed, implemented, and participants' satisfaction was evaluated by use of questionnaires. The intervention consisted of two modules: "Looking Back," aimed to reduce posttraumatic stress symptoms, and "Looking Ahead," supported coping with cancer-related fears of relapse and progression. The writing program was fully completed by 20 participants (Mage=27.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Long-term survivors of pediatric cancer have an increased risk of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and dysfunctional anxiety. However, there is a lack of evidence-based psychotherapy tailored to the needs of this target group. In this single-arm pilot study, an Internet-based psychological intervention ("Onco-STEP") for adolescent and young adult survivors was developed, and its efficacy in reducing PTSS and anxiety was evaluated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrior work demonstrated that cognitive-behavioral (CBT) and supportive-experiential (SET) group interventions can reduce dysfunctional fear of progression (FoP) in patients with chronic diseases. In this secondary analysis of a randomized controlled study, we investigated determinants of long-term response to group therapy for FoP. Response to therapy after 12 months was assessed using the Reliable Change Index (RCI).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This study investigated the effectiveness of brief psychotherapeutic group interventions in reducing dysfunctional fear of disease progression (FoP). The interventions comprised either cognitive-behavioral group therapy or supportive-experiential group therapy. We tested whether these generic interventions would prove effective in different illness types.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: This paper aims to evaluate the effects of two psychotherapeutic interventions on dysfunctional fear of progression (FoP) in cancer patients and to investigate illness-specific influences.
Methods: One hundred seventy-four cancer patients were recruited from two rehabilitation clinics and randomly assigned to either a four-session cognitive-behavioral group therapy or a supportive-experiential group therapy. The main outcome criterion was FoP that was assessed with the Fear of Progression Questionnaire (FoP-Q) directly before (T1) and after (T2) the intervention, as well as 3 (T3) and 12 months (T4) after discharge.
Objective: The aim of this study was the development and psychometric testing of a new psychological questionnaire to measure the fear of progression (FoP) in chronically ill patients (cancer, diabetes mellitus and rheumatic diseases).
Methods: The Fear of Progression Questionnaire (FoP-Q) was developed in four phases: (1) generation of items (65 interviews); (2) reduction of items--the initial version of the questionnaire (87 items) was presented to 411 patients, to construct subscales and test the reliability; (3) testing the convergent and discriminative validity of the reduced test version (43 items) within a new sample (n=439); (4) translation--German to English.
Results: The scale comprised five factors (Cronbach's alpha >.