YOUNGER BREAST CANCER SURVIVORS: MANAGING UNCERTAINTY
“Managing Uncertainty Day to Day”

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Welcome- we would like to tell you about this new study that we believe will be very helpful to younger breast cancer survivors under 50 years of age. In this study we will test out a program to help young breast cancer survivors manage their concerns about recurrence and their continuing treatment side effects. We are looking for Caucasian and African-American women who completed their treatment for breast cancer two through four years ago. You can still be on Tamoxifen or similar medication. We know that you have experienced a traumatizing life event that has brought new issues into your life. You have in many ways probably moved beyond breast cancer in the years since your diagnosis and treatment, but it is also likely that you at times you continue to face issues related to cancer survivorship.  These issues include the enduring concern about recurrence triggered by various life events such as…. We recognize that it can be difficult to talk about these concerns to your friends and family, and also that it is important for you to find meaning in what has happened and to identify positive events in your life. Our discussions with women like yourself have helped us identify strategies for managing the enduring side effects from treatment such as chemotherapy-induced menopause with accompanying hot flashes, sleep disturbances, decrease in sex drive and threats about the ability to have children. Other concerns such as how to manage lymphedema-like symptoms, weight gain, changes in body sensitivity are other issues. In the program that we will test, we will address all of these areas and provide you with the most up-to-date methods for managing treatment side-effects, along with skills for handling triggers about recurrence, talking about your concerns with  the people closest to you, and finding meaning and identifying positive aspects of cancer survivorship. The purpose of this research study is to learn if women who receive information about how to manage fears of recurrence and how to manage long term treatment side effects will have better experiences managing symptoms, have a better quality of life and show less evidence of physiological stress than women who do not receive this information. The women in this study will be put randomly into two groups.  Women in the first group will receive the Managing Uncertainty Day to Day program at the beginning of the study.  This program will include CDs and written materials to help women manage their troublesome thoughts about breast cancer recurrence and learn more about managing long term treatment side effects. Phone calls from a nurse will help familiarize the women with the CDs and written materials.  Women in the second group will receive four phone calls from a member of the research team to discuss their survivorship experience.  At the end of the study women in the second group may receive the CDs and written materials if requested.  Women in both groups will be visited at home and asked to answer some questions about themselves three times over the course of about ten months.  Women in both groups will also be collecting saliva samples during three 3-day periods to test cortisol levels, a hormone that can detect stress levels.  Women in both groups will be asked permission for study personnel to look in their medical records for specific details about their breast cancer history. We need your participation so that we can see if these materials will be of benefit to women like you. If they are, then we will plan to distribute them so that women like yourself have these resources to use as you need. For further information about enrolling in the study email us at: muic@unc.edu.