Equine-Focused Cancer Survivorship Program for Young Adult Lymphoma Survivors

Over 11 million Americans are survivors of cancer and many will experience unique physical, financial and emotional challenges that begin after the active treatment of their cancer has been completed. Lymphoma survivors have some of the highest rates of depression and anxiety following treatment, and no strategy has proven particularly effective at preventing or reducing post-traumatic stress and depression after treatment for lymphoma. Additionally, young adult survivors of cancer are particularly vulnerable to post-treatment psychosocial change and distress. To address these significant survivorship issues, interested and consenting young adult survivors of lymphoma will be enrolled in 6 weekly sessions of an Equine-Focused Cancer Survivorship Program. We hypothesize that employing equine-facilitated psychotherapy as a focused cancer survivorship program will result in a therapeutic intervention that is both acceptable to cancer survivors and efficacious. This single-arm intervention study will assess participants at the following time pOints: pre-baseline, baseline/pre-intervention, post-intervention, and three-month follow-up. Primary outcomes for assessment are interest rate, acceptability, and completion rate. Secondary analyses will: a) evaluate change in anxiety, depression, cancer-specific distress, and quality of life, and b) provide preliminary data necessary for planning future funding applications to support comparative effectiveness research.