Badger, T., Segrin, C., Dorros, S.M., Meek, P., & Lopez, A.M. (2007). Depression and anxiety in women with breast cancer and their partners. Nursing Research, 56, 44–53.
This intervention provided telephone-delivered psychosocial interventions.
One group received six weeks of telephone-delivered counseling (TIP-C) sessions based on interpersonal psychotherapy/counseling principles, covering the following topics.
These phone calls averaged 34 minutes.
A second group received six weeks of telephone-delivered, self-managed exercise protocol information. The exercise protocol consisted of engaging in regular, low-impact exercise (e.g., walking for a prescribed number of minutes at least four times per week). These phone calls averaged 11 minutes.
A third group received six weeks of attention control (AC) printed information about breast cancer with brief weekly phone calls averaging seven minutes. This group did not receive counseling or encouragement to exercise.
Data were collected at baseline (T1), one week after the final call (T2), and one month after the final call (T3).
The study used an experimental design: three-wave repeated measures with a between-subjects factor (treatment group).
Both telephone counseling and exercise conditions helped to significantly reduce anxiety in women and their partners (p < 0.001). The AC group did not evidence the same improvement in decreased anxiety, and their partners’ anxiety scores increased. The authors reported mixed-model ANOVA significant effect for time (p = 0.001), no significant main effect for treatment group, and significant group x time interaction (p = 0.01).
The intervention required special training needs of a psychiatric nurse counselor with oncology expertise to deliver the telephone counseling sessions. These 34-minute (on average) phone calls per weekly session (x 2—one per patient and one per partner) required more than one hour per week per couple of time to deliver the intervention.