How to better regulate the emotions during the illness: a pilot study evaluating the impact of a multi-component group intervention for patients with metastatic cancer.

Patients with metastatic cancer may be faced with numerous physical and psychological consequences of the disease and its development: anxiety, fear of progression, symptoms of depression, pain, fatigue, cognitive difficulties, sexual difficulties, and so on. At present, scientific literature highlights the fact that emotional dysregulation is one of the main complaints of patients with metastatic cancer. When emotions become extreme, this can lead to consequences detrimental to patients’ physical and psychological functioning. Extreme emotions can also affect quality of life as well as compliance with treatment, involvement in medical decisions and survival. The development of psychological support interventions to help patients with metastatic cancer better regulate their emotions, manage uncertainty associated with the disease and retain hope is today of paramount importance. A pilot study proposing a multi-component group intervention of 8 sessions combining cognitive-behavioural and hypnosis techniques has thus been developed.

The main objective of the pilot study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and potential effectiveness of a multi-component group intervention promoting emotional regulation and emotional well-being of patients with metastatic cancer. A parallel objective is to also evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the evaluation procedure. The study’s secondary objectives are to evaluate patient satisfaction with the intervention, the practice of hypnosis in everyday life, adjustment to the disease, physical activity, management of physical symptoms, quality of life and spiritual well-being. Firstly, the patients will participate in an individual psychological consultation and then 8 sessions in groups of 4 to 6 patients combining cognitive-behavioural techniques with hypnosis. The evaluation will be conducted just prior to participation in the group intervention and 4 months later just after the intervention.

The pilot study will thus evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of a new group psychological support intervention to help patients with metastatic cancer to better regulate their emotions. The study will also contribute to improved knowledge about the regulation of anxiety, fear of progression and depression in patients with metastatic cancer. In addition, the study proposes a unique evaluation procedure which, to our knowledge, is the first to propose dynamic evaluation of anxiety regulation at both the physiological and psychological level in patients with metastatic cancer. Lastly, the pilot study will subsequently enable development of a randomized study with a control group to determine the effectiveness of the intervention.