A Protocol for a feasibility study of Cognitive Bias Modification training (IVY 2.0) countering fatigue in people with breast cancer, 2024, Geerts

[rvallee]

A Protocol for a feasibility study of Cognitive Bias Modification training (IVY 2.0) countering fatigue in people with breast cancer
Pre-print: https://assets-eu.researchsquare.co...-fa6c-47ee-9eb0-49ddde01c81c.pdf?c=1718213203

Cancer related fatigue (CRF) is the most prevalent, distressing and quality of life disturbing symptom during and after cancer treatment for many cancer types including breast cancer. The experience and burden of this symptom can induce a cognitive bias towards fatigue or a fatigue related self-image, which can further increase the fatigue symptoms and related behaviour. For this, a Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) eHealth app (IVY 2.0) has been developed. The app aims to counter the fatigue related self-image and to modify it towards vitality, which might translate to less experienced fatigue and more experienced vitality. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of the IVY 2.0 CBM training in a feasibility wait-list control trial. The effectiveness of the CBM app is measured on (1) underlying mechanisms (cognitive fatigue bias), (2) symptom fatigue (self-reported fatigue and vitality), and (3) related behaviours (avoidance and all-or-nothing behaviour).

 

[rvallee]

Posted mainly because of how much it seems to borrow from NLP and ritual motions, so kind of like the Lightning Process:

The IVY CBM training consists of an eHealth application in which participants categorize words into 4 categories: vitality, fatigue, I, and other. The categories ‘Fatigue’ and ‘Other’ are presented at the top of the screen, while the categories ‘Vitality’ and ‘I’ are presented at the bottom of the screen. In the middle of the screen, a total of 120 stimuli related to the 4 categories are presented randomly and sequentially, such as ‘active’ (related to vitality), ‘exhausted’ (related to fatigue), ‘them’ (related to other), and ‘mine’ (related to I). Participants categorized the stimuli to their categories by swiping up (for fatigue and other) or down (for vitality and me) as quickly as possible. The bottom-top position has been chosen in such a way that the swipe movement corresponds to a 'toward me' (approach) or 'away from me' (avoidance) principle, which reinforces this association task (31). Moreover, by having 'avoid' words zoom out (become smaller), and 'approach' words zoom in (become larger), this effect is further enhanced. Categorizing the vitality and I words together is thought to reinforce connections between self-image and vitality and weaken associations between self-image and fatigue.

There are 3 references to CFS that seem to have served as some sort of validation for the questionnaires and pretty much borrows the same nonsense about catastrophizing, all-or-nothing and other weird stuff that shows how they don't understand a damn thing about fatigue.

The first questionnaire is the shortened version of the Cognitive and Behavioural Responses Questionnaire (CBRSQ; 36). It is used to measure behavioural responses such as avoidance / resting, and all-or-nothing. The avoidance / resting subscale contains eight items (e.g., ‘I sleep during the day to keep my fatigue under control’) and the allor-nothing subscale contains five items (e.g., ‘When it comes to doing things, I'm an "all or nothing" kind of person’).

I don't know what to make of that:

To our knowledge, our research team is the first to introduce CBM to counter fatigue symptoms

First? 500th? Same difference. I guess they want to pretend that whatever this CBM is is not CBT. Or whatever.

The enshitification of health care continues.

 

[Peter T]

When I think of friends and family currently undergoing chemo, their life is taken up with managing their life in the face of cancer. Major life decision may be needed given current prognoses and ongoing/future needs of their immediate family. Obviously each person’s situation is different, but devoting time to CBM or to CBT may not come out high on their agenda compared to say time with a child or a spouse.

I don’t know how many people once in remission have persistent fatigue when addressing that fatigue might be more relevant, but would a short term uptick on subjective rating scales, when health status is in flux and any time available may be very finite, be worth the energy costs involved.

[edited to correct typo]