Adapting The Fear Of Recurrence Therapy (FORT) for Parents and Establishing Acceptability and Feasibility

Launched by UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA · Mar 7, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This clinical trial is studying a new program called Parent-FORT, which aims to help parents of childhood cancer survivors who are dealing with a strong fear of cancer coming back. Many parents experience this fear, which can affect their overall well-being and quality of life. The trial will test whether this program is feasible (meaning it's practical to carry out) and acceptable (meaning parents find it helpful and are satisfied with it) before conducting a larger study.

To participate, parents must be the primary caregiver of a child under 18 who has completed cancer treatment and has not had a recurrence. They should also have a certain level of fear about cancer returning, as measured by a specific questionnaire. Participants will be randomly assigned to either get the Parent-FORT program right away or to wait three months before starting. Throughout the trial, participants will fill out questionnaires to track their experiences and any changes in their fear of cancer recurrence and overall quality of life. This study is important because it seeks to provide support to a group of parents who have not had access to this kind of help before.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • Parent (or primary caregiver) caring for a childhood cancer survivor (\<18 years of age) of any type of cancer type, who is at least 1 months from the completion of active treatment and has not had a recurrence of their cancer
• • A score of 13 or greater on the Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory-Short Form-Parent version (FCRI-SF-P; range 0-36), suggesting clinical levels of FCR
• • Access to a computer and internet connection
• • Living in Canada
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • Being the parent of a pediatric cancer survivor who is now 18 years of age or older
• • Being the parent of a pediatric cancer survivor who has undergone hematopoietic cell transplantation and has active chronic or acute graft-versus-host disease which has not stabilized for at least 3 months
• • Non-English speakers
• • Currently participating in another therapist-led psychosocial therapy group
• • Parent with unmanaged/undermanaged mental health disorder judged to be clinically contraindicated and/or likely to affect the group work
• • To avoid violating the assumption of nonindependence of the data, only one parent/caregiver per child can participate in the study.