Caregivers-Patients Support to Cope with Advanced-Cancer

The goal of this K08 is to prepare the PI to receive hands-on experience in implementation and dissemination, as well as design and lead randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in palliative care, and to improve grant writing skills to become an independent R01-funded investigator. The individuals surrounding the catchment area of the PI experience lower cancer health outcomes and are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced cancer when compared to other areas. The individuals experiencing advanced cancer, and their caregivers are at increased risk for unmet psychosocial needs, and this K08 will allow the PI to focus on this critical gap in cancer health outcomes. The research goal of this proposal is to refine and pilot an intervention titled Caregivers' Patients' Support for Advanced Cancer (CASA), a five-session, 60-minute telehealth series for patient-caregiver dyads. The long-term training goal of this application is to become an independent investigator in Implementation and Dissemination Science in palliative care. The rationale for this project is that it will lay the groundwork for a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) testing the efficacy of CASA. It will also assess the implementation of an innovative method to deliver the CASA intervention. This study aims to utilize a collaborative intervention planning framework that integrates community-based participatory research, dissemination, and implementation models to modify and assess the feasibility and acceptability of the CASA intervention. The Specific Aims are as follows: Aim 1. Use a collaborative intervention planning framework with providers and community stakeholders to refine study procedures before the implementation of a pilot randomized controlled trial. Aim 2: To train community members as patient recruiters and clinical psychology doctoral students as interventionists of the CASA intervention. Aim 3: To implement a pilot randomized controlled trial to explore the feasibility, acceptability, potential efficacy and barriers to implementing CASA in clinical settings.