Among the devastating illnesses impacting rural America, few exact the physical, social, psychological, and economic toll of lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in rural America, and the levy is particularly acute in Kentucky - a state that not only leads the nation in lung cancer incidence and mortality but is a global epicenter of lung cancer. Despite the prevailing nihilism regarding lung cancer care, lung cancer survivors are living longer. Innovations in prevention, early detection, and treatment, have created substantial optimism and opportunities for long-term lung cancer survivorship. These dramatic changes in the lung cancer care landscape have invigorated the need for quality lung cancer survivorship interventions.
The overarching goal of the Kentucky LEADS Collaborative Lung Cancer Survivorship Care program is to reduce the burden of lung cancer by offering an innovative survivorship care approach that improves lung cancer quality of life, overcomes lung cancer stigma, and helps survivors engage with care. Using a novel precision survivorship approach and developed in collaboration with rural community stakeholders, the program's foundation incorporates principles of patient-centered care, shared decision making, and motivational interviewing to build survivor engagement. A large acceptability and feasibility trial conducted in collaboration with nine lung cancer care facilities in Kentucky with lung cancer survivors (N=140) demonstrated the acceptability of the intervention among survivors, caregivers, and lung cancer care clinicians.
The study also revealed the feasibility of conducting the proposed study methods in rural cancer care facilities. The proposed project continues this program of research by conducting a two-group parallel randomized clinical trial comparing the impact of the Kentucky LEADS Collaborative Lung Cancer Survivorship Care program (KLCLCSC) among lung cancer survivors (N=300) against an enhanced usual care condition (bibliotherapy+assessment) on quality of life outcomes. Rural-residing lung cancer survivors will be recruited from ten oncology care facilities throughout Kentucky.
The project's first aim compares the efficacy of the interventions with regard to lung cancer quality of life among survivors as measured by the FACT-L and other rigorous assessments of patient engagement, symptom burden, psychosocial well-being, and behavior change. The project's second aim evaluates the moderating impact of including caregivers as intervention partners on survivor quality of life outcomes. A third aim evaluates the cost-effectiveness of the KLCLCSC intervention in comparison to the enhanced usual care condition.
Based on highly encouraging pilot data collected in collaboration with oncology care programs in Kentucky, this research holds credible potential to establish a new paradigm for addressing the challenges associated with lung cancer and for delivering quality survivorship care to rural-residing, economically distressed lung cancer survivors.
Jerod Stapleton, PhD
Jamie Studts, PhD University of Colorado
Laurie McLouth, PhD
Brent Shelton, PhD
Susanne Arnold, MD
