NCT05087576

Chinese American Family Caregiver Writing Study

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 67 (actual)
• Sponsor: New York University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The Chinese American Family Caregiver Writing Study is a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) testing the efficacy of the Expressive Helping (EH) intervention among Chinese Americans who are providing care for family members undergoing cancer treatment.

Detailed description

Because the psychosocial health of Chinese cancer patients and their caregivers are linked, there is a need to improve health outcomes for not just the patients, but also for the caregivers. While many caregiving interventions have focused on the caregiver-patient dyad as the "the unit of care", interventions that solely target caregivers are crucial given the emotional, social, financial, and physical toll of caregiving. To address this need, investigators are testing a writing intervention, Expressive Helping (EH), with Chinese family members who are providing care for their family members diagnosed with cancer. Over four brief structured writing sessions, participants write about their cancer caregiving experiences, disclosing their emotions and providing encouragement and guidance, with the knowledge that their narratives will be shared with and used as a resource for other Chinese cancer caregivers. Participants will be adult cancer caregivers of Chinese descent. After screening and consent, eligible participants will be enrolled in a 1:1 randomized controlled trial. Assessments of psychological symptoms will occur at baseline (prior to randomization), 1-month post-intervention, and 3-month post-intervention. Investigators will also assess potential mediators and moderators of the potential intervention effects. Investigators interacting with the participants will be blind to condition assignment.

Conditions

• Mental Health Issue

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Expressive Helping	Expressive helping integrates two distinct areas of research showing that emotional disclosure over writing and support giving improves psychological well-being among healthy and clinical populations. Participants write 4 brief structured writing sessions.
BEHAVIORAL	Caregiving Fact writing	Factual Writing has been used with in other writing-based interventions (e.g., expressive writing). It is also completed in 4 brief structured writing sessions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-10-01
• Primary completion: 2022-09-18
• Completion: 2022-09-18
• First posted: 2021-10-21
• Last updated: 2022-11-02

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States