Truce: A pragmatic controlled trial of a seven-week Acceptance and Commitment Therapy program for young people who have a parent with cancer

The administration of Truce, a manualised, structured Acceptance and Commitment Therapy program for adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with a parent with cancer. The program is delivered orally in a group format, by two psychologists/social workers with training in ACT. Groups consist of 4-8 participants and runs once a week for 7 sessions of 1.5-2 hours duration, for an overall duration of 7 weeks. Parallel to the intervention one parent of the participant (not necessarily the parent with cancer) is given a psychoeducational booklet which provides details about the program, ACT and research findings regarding the impact on children of having a parent with cancer. Session 6 is a joint participant-parent session. The content of session 6 follows on from the content of the parent psychoeducational booklet and provides an opportunity for the participants and their parents to discuss issues pertinent to the family situation when a parent has cancer. Homework is administered through weekly tasks with a participant booklet. Homework exercises consist of small daily tasks that would take approximately 30-60 minutes per week. Fidelity to the program measured by facilitator compliance to the manualised program, homework compliance and participant engagement. Facilitator compliance is measured through written logs of each group session which is sent to the independent administrating team and discussed at weekly briefing/debriefing meetings. Homework compliance is measured by a homework log that is completed by the participant at each session and forwarded to the administration team. Participant engagement is measured through a 10-point scale of session engagement administered to each participant at the end of each session.