I want to share some exciting news: AOSW will offer a “Post-Conference Research Institute” following the 2016 AOSW 32nd Annual Conference in May. This will be a one-day conference for oncology social work researchers and practitioners who want to further their knowledge of research. I’m very excited to be offering this opportunity of a deeper research experience than is available at the conference itself. If you are interested, please consider extending your conference stay for an extra day! You’ll find details in the 2016 Annual Conference Preliminary Program (page 35).

In this issue of AOSW Navigator, I want to call attention to a special issue of the American Psychological Association (APA) journal, American Psychologist, which is devoted to the topic of psychology and cancer (February- March, 2015). While this issue comes out of psychology and not social work, social workers in oncology will benefit from being familiar with the latest research and the current thinking in psychology. One of the articles in this issue, “Life After Diagnosis and Treatment of Cancer in Adulthood: Contributions From Psychosocial Oncology Research,” was written by researchers from UCLA (Stanton, Rowland & Ganz, 2015).

The article is a “review article” in that it provides a broad overview of the field, as well as what the authors identify as important directions for future research. Instead of reporting specific research findings, it summarizes the results of numerous studies in the field. As a result, it is a good starting place to understand where research in psychosocial oncology is going, and to find strong research in a specific subfield of interest to you.

The article focuses on research on adult survivors, calling attention to the importance of the psychosocial needs of this rapidly growing population (14.5 million in the U.S.). The authors conceptualize “survivorship” as comprised of three different time periods: “Re-entry,” starting when treatment ends, “Early Survivorship,” the first five years after treatment and “Long-term Survivorship,” more than five years after treatment. In each of these stages, they identify problems faced by survivors. The problems are well known to oncology social workers, including anxiety and fear of recurrence, depressive symptoms, fatigue, cognitive impairment, pain and cancer-specific sequelae such as sexual dysfunction. Extensive research on each of these problems is presented and summarized.

Of special interest to oncology social workers is the section on “Psychosocial and Behavioral Interventions after Cancer Treatment.” The interventions identified that have been found effective against the common problems identified in RCTs (Randomized Controlled Trials) include cognitive-behavioral therapy, stress management techniques, psycho-educational approaches and emotional expression. Many research studies are cited showing small to moderate effects of these interventions. Because the problems often come in clusters, it is not possible to identify a single intervention that is most effective for any specific problem. That is, some interventions (CBT, physical exercise, mindfulness) have been shown to be effective in all problem areas. However, it may be that psycho-educational approaches are most valuable in the re-entry phase.

In the final section of the article, the authors address problems of making effective psychosocial interventions more accessible to the broad population of adult cancer survivors. In addition to carrying out specific interventions, this is another area where social workers can play a central role.

As AOSW Research Director, I have focused on an article that I think will be influential across all fields providing psychosocial care to cancer patients, including social work. Oncology social workers benefit from knowing the research that provides the evidence base of our work. I encourage you to explore this article further, as well as the other articles in the special issue. Good reading!

Reference
Stanton, A., Rowland, N., & Ganz, P. (2015). “Life after diagnosis and treatment of cancer in adulthood: Contributions from psychosocial oncology research.” American Psychologist, 70(2), 159-174.