Psychosocial interventions improve quality of life in patients with cancer

In a study just published in the journal Psycho-oncology -by the POLARIS consortium and with Dr. Laurien Buffart as senior author-, we present the results of an individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the effects of psychosocial interventions on quality of life, emotional function and social function in patients with cancer, and to study for which patients such interventions work better. Therefore we looked at moderator effects of demographic, clinical, personal, and intervention-related characteristics.
We pooled IPD from 22 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), with in total more than 4000 patients for our analyses.
Overall, we found clear evidence that psychosocial interventions significantly improve quality of life  as well as emotional and social function in patients with cancer, with largest effects for psychotherapy. We found evidence that effects of coping skills training were moderated by age, treatment type, and targeted interventions. We found some evidence that effects of psychotherapy on emotional function may be moderated by cancer type, but these analyses were based on few studies.