A Randomized Controlled Trail of A Narrative Therapy Technique Intervention To Facilitate The Life Meaning In Chinese Breast Cancer Patients During Chemotherapy: Study Protocol

Aim:The purpose of this protocol is to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of face-to-face intervention based on narrative therapy to enhance the sense of meaning in life and other relevant psychological indicators for Chinese breast cancer patients during chemotherapy.Background:The sense of meaning in life can relieve the negative emotions,improve patients' quality of life,enhance treatment compliance,tap the potential of coping with trauma and so on.Breast cancer patients with chemotherapy are facing more severe psychological distress and the existing intervention studies are less and the target population is not suitable for breast cancer patients with chemotherapy.Through narrative psychotherapy,the psychological growth of patients can be achieved.This protocol is based on a brief face‐to‐face narrative therapy technique intervention to improve life meaning for breast cancer patients during chemotherapy.Design:A non-blinded randomized controlled trial.Methods:92 breast cancer chemotherapy patients were randomly divided into the experimental group and the control group in a 1:1 ratio,and 6 face-to-face individualized interventions were conducted.The four evaluations were conducted after diagnosis,the third intervention,the last intervention,and three months after the last intervention.The main evaluation indicators were the sense of meaning of life,the level of anxiety and depression,the level of post-traumatic growth,psychological distress and medical coping style.Discussion:The purpose of this study is to construct an intervention program based on narrative therapy technology to improve the life meaning of Chinese breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.If the intervention program is effective and feasible,it can be applied in clinic and benefit patients.Impact:This study will provide a reference template for clinical psychological intervention,allowing breast cancer patients to reconstruct the meaning of life in trauma.If this protocol is effective,it will be applied in clinic.Trial registration:This trial was registered on Chinese clinical Trials.gov (ChiCTR2000034409),the registration date is 04/07/2020.Registered url is http://www.chictr.org.cn/index.aspxThis study was reviewed by the ethics committee of Nanjing Medical University. The results showed that the rights and interests of the subjects were fully protected, and there was no potential risk for the subjects. This study was agreed to carry out.