Cancer patients’ participation and commitment to psychological interventions : a scoping review

Objective: Some psychological interventions have been developed to improve cancer patients’ and survivors’ quality of life, well-being, and health engagement. However, studies are usually focused on effectiveness and less on factors influencing survivors’ decision to participate, both subjective (e.g., needs) and contingent (e.g., factors related to participation/non participation). This scoping review identifies factors influencing participation, decline to participate, attrition and adherence in psychological interventions. Methods: 3 electronic databases were searched for published studies on psychological interventions. Retrieved publications were scanned by authors against inclusion criteria and forty-two articles were selected. Relevant information were summarized narratively. Results: More information is available on attrition and factors related to participation/non participation, so that future psychological interventions may employ ad-hoc tools to take into consideration patients’ reasons to adhere to psychological interventions. Secondarily, non-participation/dropout is often linked to factors related to intervention’ commitment and its interference with daily life. On the contrary, patients’ reasons to participate often identify with the value they find in the intervention according to their personal needs and experience of illness. Conclusion: We suggest that future research should analyze patients’ representation of psychological interventions and take them into account to tailor the interventions on participants’ lived experience, to improve participation.