What is helpful and what is unhelpful about remotely delivered acceptance and commitment therapy for young brain tumour survivors?

Childhood brain tumour survivors are found to have the poorest quality of life of all cancer survivors. There are many late effects of childhood brain tumour treatment on physical and mental health. Patients and carers have identified psychological and social needs as the most important to research and most likely to get missed.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an evidence-based psychological therapy that could improve young brain tumour survivors’ physical and mental health. However, we do not know what young people think about ACT when it is offered remotely, over video-link. This is important, because most health services have increased remote delivery of care and it is likely to remain an important way to receive care in future.

Seventy-two young brain tumour survivors aged 11-to-24 will be offered 12 weekly sessions of ACT over video-link in a funded research study that will find out ACT’s clinical benefits. The proposed research aims to understand young brain tumour survivors’ personal experiences of receiving ACT over video-link at home. Participants will give their individual views on ACT over video-therapy: What helps and what hinders.

After each ACT session patients will be invited to give a 1-2 minute video diary (or in text if they prefer),saying what went well in the session and what did not go so well. After ACT sessions finish patients will be interviewed by a researcher, funded by this award, about their overall experiences of ACT over video-link.

For young brain tumour survivors, making sure that video-therapy is fit-for-purpose from patients’ perspectives is a key priority. This study will help researchers and clinicians learn the best ways of doing video-therapy for young brain tumour survivors. These findings will be important for developing video-therapy techniques for young people who have had other cancers too.