ExBRAC - the Pilot Study

Breast Cancer, Quality of Life

breast cancer, quality of life

The EXBRAC pilot study will investigate the quality of life of patients with breast cancer, and the effect of an intervention with expressive writing. This is a pilot study with two purposes, the first is to create a questionnaire specifically developed for the ExBRAC study, and the second to evaluate the feasibility of the expressive writing.

In the first stage of the study, patients newly diagnosed with breast cancer will be interviewed using a semi-structured method. Based on the transcriptions from the interviews, themes will be gathered and transformed into questions. The questions will be compiled into a questionnaire and an expert group will review the questionnaire to ensure no topic is lacking and an adequate number of response options is present. Lastly, the questionnaire will be face-to-face validated, meaning a patient completes it with a research nurse present to apprehend any ambiguities or questions needing clarification. In the second part of the pilot study, patients will be included to test the feasibility of the interventions consisting of expressive writing. The intervention consists of expressive writing during 20 minutes. The writing should be of the breast cancer, the treatment or other related topics. The patient is invited to write once every week in a separate place. The intervention ends after four weeks. The written text is not collected. In the pilot study, the intervention will be followed by a telephone call about five weeks after inclusion. To test the feasibility of the intervention, 20 to 25 included patient is considered sufficient.

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