{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.039047619047619046, 'fraction_numerical': 0.02095238095238095, 'mean_word_length': 4.935028248587571, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Piloting workshops to enhance hope among patients with advanced breast cancer and oncologists.

137 Background: Hope is a modifiable entity that can be separated from cancer outcome. Increasing hopefulness in patients with advanced breast cancer and oncologists may be of intrinsic value. The feasibility and efficacy of a short intervention to increase hopefulness in these groups are unknown. Methods: We enrolled eligible participants at 2 medical centers into 2 cohorts- 1 for patients with advanced breast cancer and 1 for oncologists. The intervention, a half-day hope enhancement workshop (HEW), was conducted in groups of 10-15 participants within each cohort. Participants completed evaluations including the Adult Hope Scale (AHS) and Herth Hope Index (HHI) pre-workshop, post-workshop, and at 3 months. Mean scores were compared across time points within each cohort using paired t-tests. Results: Ten out of 13 consented patients (76.9%) and all 26 consented physicians (100%) participated in the HEW, meeting our feasibility threshold. In patients, the mean AHS score increased significantly from 50.60 (SD 4.88) pre-workshop to 56.50 (SD 4.74) post-workshop (t = 3.99, p = 0.003); the mean HHI score also increased but this trend was not significant. In oncologists, the increases in mean AHS and HHI scores post-workshop were smaller and not significant. A summary is shown in the table. Post-workshop, patients and physicians were inclined to apply what they learned. However, at 3 months, less than half of participants responded to the evaluation. Mean AHS and HHI scores in patients fell back to baseline values. Conclusions: A short intervention to enhance hope was feasible and associated with increased hopefulness in patients, which was not maintained. Next steps for patients include “maintenance hope therapy” with earlier follow-up and more sustained contact post-workshop. Among oncologists, we hypothesize that for those not grappling with poor prognoses, reframing hope may be less effective, and they may feel less urgency to augment their hopefulness. [Table: see text]