Bright IDEAS Strategy Reduces Anxiety in Young Patients With Cancer

A cancer diagnosis is a profound disruption at any age, but for young adults between 18 and 39, it often strikes at the very moment they are stepping into independence. Key developmental milestones — such as graduating college, launching a career, moving out of a childhood home, or starting a family — can be suddenly derailed or delayed by the rigors of systemic therapy. To address this unique "developmental disruption," researchers at the Rutgers Cancer Institute tested Bright IDEAS, a targeted intervention designed to provide patients with tactical problem-solving skills based on cognitive-behavioral therapy.

In a study published in JAMA Network Open, participants who engaged in the six-session program showed significant reductions in depression and anxiety, reporting a markedly higher quality of life compared to those receiving standard psychosocial care. By teaching a five-step framework — Identify, Define, Evaluate, Act and See — the program empowers patients to move past feeling overwhelmed to proactively managing their unique stressors.

CURE sat down with Katie Devine, Associate Director of the New Jersey Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Research Center of Excellence at Rutgers Cancer Institute, to discuss the study's impact. Devine highlights the program's flexibility, which allows it to adapt to the diverse needs of this age group, whether they are navigating financial independence or the complexities of parenting while in treatment.

Transcript

You have noted that while a cancer diagnosis upends any life, it's uniquely distressing for those in the 18 to 39 age group. Beyond the biological impact, what are the specific developmental milestones of independence that most frequently get derailed by a diagnosis, and how does Bright IDEAS help bridge that gap?

When you think about a person in their early 20s or 30s, they're going through a lot of developmental changes. Often, this is a time where they've just graduated high school and might be thinking about going to college. Often they're starting a career, getting a job for the first time, moving out of their childhood home, gaining financial independence, and then, as you get a little bit older, also thinking about starting a family of their own. And a cancer diagnosis can really disrupt or delay all of these milestones.

And what's really interesting about this age group is that everyone develops at a different level of maturity. So, just because someone's 25, you can't quite figure out which is most pressing to them. And so, when we sought to intervene for this group, we used Bright IDEAS, which is an evidence-based problem-solving skills training intervention. And the beauty of it is that really is very flexible and adaptable to the individual needs. So, if you're a 25-year-old who's starting their first job and those are your concerns, we can apply the framework to that, versus if you're a 25-year-old and you're married with two children, that's your concern about how your children are managing this, the framework is also applicable to that. So, it really can address a wide range of needs and help young adults feel more empowered to manage the stressors that get thrown upon them when they're facing a cancer diagnosis.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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