Photo Credit: Benjavisa

A telephone-delivered positive psychology intervention (Positive Affect for the Transplantation of Hematopoietic stem cells intervention [PATH]) is beneficial for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) survivors, according to a study in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Survivors of HSCT that were 100 days post-HSCT for hematologic malignancy to either PATH or usual care were randomly assigned. PATH entailed nine weekly phone sessions on gratitude, personal strengths, and meaning and was delivered by a behavioral health expert. The researchers found that 91% of those randomly assigned to PATH completed all sessions and reported that the positive psychology exercises were easy to complete and subjectively useful. PATH participants reported greater improvements in gratitude, anxiety, and physical function compared with usual care at nine weeks and in gratitude, positive affect, life satisfaction, optimism, anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, quality of life, physical functioning, and fatigue at 18 weeks.