Resilience in adolescents and young adults with cystic fibrosis: A pilot feasibility study of the promoting resilience in stress management intervention.

Background: Disease burden in cystic fibrosis (CF) impacts quality of life, distress, and treatment adherence. The promoting resilience in stress management (PRISM), is a brief patient-focused intervention to promote resilience in adolescents and young adults (AYAs), which may mitigate the negative outcomes, and is proven to be feasible and acceptable in other diseases.

Objective: Our aim was to test the feasibility and acceptability of PRISM among AYAs with CF in addition to collecting pilot data regarding patient-reported resilience, distress, and quality of life.

Methods: Eligible English speaking, 12 to 21 year patients admitted to the hospital were enrolled. We defined feasibility as 80% completion of all sessions. Acceptability was defined qualitatively based on feedback about timing, content and delivery of intervention. As an exploratory aim, questionnaires measuring resilience (Connor-Davidson resilience scale), distress (Kessler-6 scale), and disease-specific health-related quality of life (CF questionnaire-revised [CFQ-R]) were given at baseline and postintervention.

Results: 10 out of 17 (59%) patients consented to participate. Eight were Caucasian, eight female with age range 13 to 20 years (median: 18). Nine completed all PRISM sessions with universally positive feedback. Health perception and respiratory domain scores of the CFQ-R improved (47.2-65.1; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.6-35.6; 50.9-61.9; 95% CI, 1.7-19.9, respectively), however in the setting of inpatient exacerbation treatment it would be hard to attribute these changes to PRISM.

Conclusion: PRISM was feasible and highly acceptable among AYAs with CF. Future research is needed to test the efficacy of PRISM among a larger group of patients with CF in a multicenter trial.