Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Feb 25, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 2, 2022 - Mar 10, 2022
Date Accepted: Mar 29, 2022
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Co-design of a return-to-work intervention after breast cancer treatments: feasibility study protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
The mortality rate from breast cancer has been declining for many years and the population of working-age survivors is steadily increasing. However, recurrent side effects of cancer and its treatment (e.g., loss of arm mobility, pain, fatigue) can lead to multiple disabilities and disruption of day-to-day life, including work. Despite the existing knowledge of best practices regarding return-to-work (RTW) for breast cancer survivors, only a few interdisciplinary interventions have been developed to address the individualized needs and multiple challenges of RTW stakeholders. Thus, it seems appropriate to develop RTW interventions collaboratively, using a co-design approach, with these specific stakeholders (e.g., breast cancer survivors, healthcare professionals, employer and insurer representatives).
Objective:
This manuscript presents a protocol to develop and test an innovative interdisciplinary pilot intervention based on a co-design approach to better support return-to-work and job retention after breast cancer.
Methods:
First, a participatory research approach will be used to develop the intervention in a co-design workshop with 12 to 20 participants, including people affected by cancer, employer and insurance representatives, and healthcare professionals. Next, a pilot intervention will be tested in a primary care setting and include six to eight women affected by breast cancer. Acceptability and feasibility of the pilot intervention will be pre-tested through semi-structured interviews that include participants, healthcare professionals, and patient partners involved. The transcribed data will undergo an iterative content analysis.
Results:
The first phase of the project, the co-design workshop, was completed in June 2021. Pilot testing of the intervention will begin in spring 2022. Results from the testing will be available in late 2022.
Conclusions:
The project will offer novel data regarding the use of the co-design approach for the development of innovative co-designed interventions. In addition, it will be possible to document the acceptability and feasibility of the pilot intervention with a primary care team. Depending on the results obtained, the intervention could be implemented on a larger scale.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.