Providing psychological support to parents of childhood cancer survivors: ‘cascade’ intervention trial results and lessons for the future

Abstract

We conducted a three‐armed trial to assess Cascade, a four‐module group videoconferencing cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) intervention for parents of childhood cancer survivors currently aged <18 years. We allocated parents to Cascade, an attention control (peer‐ support group), or a waitlist. The primary outcome was parents’ health‐related quality of life (PedsQL‐Family Impact/EQ‐5D‐5L) six months post‐intervention. Parents also reported their anxiety/depression, parenting self‐agency, fear of recurrence, health service and psychotropic medication use, engagement in productive activities, confidence to use, and actual use of, CBT skills, and their child’s quality of life. Seventy‐six parents opted in; 56 commenced the trial. Cascade achieved good parent engagement and most Cascade parents were satisfied and reported benefits. Some parents expressed concerns about the time burden and the group format. Most outcomes did not differ across trial arms. Cascade parents felt more confident to use more CBT skills than peer-support and waitlisted parents, but this did not lead to more use of CBT. Cascade parents reported lower psychosocial health scores for their child than waitlisted parents. Cascade parents’ health service use, psychotropic medication use, and days engaged in productive activities did not improve, despite some improvements in waitlisted parents. Our trial was difficult to implement, but participants were largely satisfied. Cascade did not improve most outcomes, possibly because many parents were functioning well pre‐enrolment. We used these findings to improve Cascade and will trial the new version in future.