ORIGINAL ARTICLE Hope-based intervention for individuals susceptible to colorectal cancer: a pilot study

The Author(s) 2012. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Individuals undergoing genetic testing for hereditary colorectal cancer (HCRC) are prone to develop psychological problems. This study investigated the short-term efficacy of a hope-based intervention program in increasing hope levels and decreasing psychopathology among HCRC genetic testing recipients. A longitudinal study was carried out on HCRC genetic testing recipients recruited by the Hereditary Gastrointestinal Cancer Registry. Participants joined a hope-based intervention program con-sisting of six sessions of weekly closed group therapy. Psy-chological questionnaires were administered immediately before the first and after the last sessions of the program measuring hope, anxiety and depression levels of the par-ticipants. There were 22 participants (7 men and 15 women) at a mean age of 49.4 ± 9.6 years. Women tended to have higher level of anxiety than men at pre-intervention. Paired sample t tests were conducted. Hope levels increased sig-nificantly from pre- to post-intervention (pre-total hope score = 5.56; post-total hope score = 6.07; t(1) =-0.281, p \ 0.05). Anxiety level also decreased significantly from pre- to post-intervention (pre-anxiety score = 7.38; post-anxiety score = 5.90; t (1) = 2.35, p \ 0.05). Our findings imply that hope-based intervention program would be effective in enhancing hope in HCRC genetic testing recip-ients. The program may also be more effective in alleviating anxiety than depression in these individuals