Facilitating Adjustment in Low Income Black Women With Breast Cancer

Minority women are grossly underserved and suffer poorer quality of life during and after treatment for breast cancer. Despite this greater need, interventions designed to foster adaptation to disease among such women are scarce. Our recent randomized trial tested the efficacy of a 10-week multi-modal, group-based, cognitive behavioral stress management (CBSM) intervention delivered in a university setting among women with breast cancer who recently completed adjuvant treatment. Using a panel of psychological, physiological, and physical indicators of adaptation, the investigators examined whether the intervention facilitated "recovery" or adaptation after adjuvant therapy for breast cancer had been completed. CBSM intervention participants showed improvements in multiple indicators of psychosocial adaptation (fewer intrusive thoughts, lower anxiety, less social disruption, less negative affect, more positive affect, greater benefit finding, and higher levels of positive states of mind), physiological adaptation (decreased cortisol and increased cellular immune function and Th1 cytokine production) and physical adaptation to disease (less fatigue and improved sleep quality). Many of these findings held at 3 and 9 month follow-ups. As with most psychosocial oncology research, participants in the randomized trial were mostly non-Hispanic White women. Whether or not the results of that trial are generalizable to the larger population that includes minority women needs to be tested.

The proposed research aims to translate this University-based, CBSM intervention into a format that will be acceptable and effective in a community setting. The investigators will target our efforts toward low-income African American women, (n=120 after attrition) diagnosed with breast cancer (all stages of disease). Participants will be randomized to 10-week CBSM intervention or an attention time-matched Enhanced Breast Cancer Wellness and Education (CW) active comparison-control condition and monitored for 6 months afterward. Outcomes include: (a) acceptability of the intervention, (b) psychosocial adaptation, (c) physical symptom clusters, (d) economic implications and (e) an objective indicator of stress (diurnal salivary cortisol). The main goal is to test whether a successful stress-management intervention can be effectively implemented in natural settings in the community and will be acceptable to a community-dwelling, low-income population of African American women with breast cancer.

Specific Aim 1: To examine the acceptability of an empirically-validated stress management intervention in community-dwelling low-income African American women with breast cancer.

Specific Aim 2: To test the prediction that participants randomized to CBSM intervention show significant improvements in indices of psychosocial adaptation (i.e., cancer-specific distress, quality of life) relative to women randomized to a CW attention control condition across the study period.

Specific Aim 3: To test the prediction that participants randomized to CBSM intervention show significant improvements in indices of physical symptom clusters relative to women randomized to a CW attention control condition across the study period (physical symptom clusters include pain, sleep, fatigue).

Specific Aim 4: To test the prediction that women randomized to a CBSM intervention versus CW attention control condition have better economic outcomes across the study period (as measured by faster return to work, fewer sick days, fewer health care visits).

Specific Aim 5: To test the prediction that participants randomized to CBSM intervention show significant improvements in indices of physiological adaptation relative to women randomized to a CW attention control condition across the study period by examining diurnal salivary cortisol as objective measure of stress.