Improving Wellness Among Latino Breast, Colorectal and Prostate Cancer Survivors: A National Randomized Control Trial of Patient Navigators Using LIVESTRONG's Cancer Navigation Center

Purpose: Latino cancer survivors experience an unequal burden of unmet needs after treatment, which compromise their health care and wellness; experts recommend providing psychosocial services as an integral part of quality cancer care. Methods: Cancer groups Redes En Acción and LIVESTRONG partnered to conduct a randomized control trial utilizing trained, bilingual, bicultural patient navigators to improve wellness and access to psychosocial services among non-metastatic Latino cancer survivors from Texas and Florida. The trial tests the efficacy of patient navigation (PN) in improving general and disease-specific quality of life (QoL), treatment compliance, and identification of mechanisms that may promote Qol. The study involves a 2 X 4 randomized repeated measures design with an experimental condition (combined PN over three months with access to the LIVESTRONG Cancer Navigation Center [LCNC] services [PN+LCNC]) versus a control condition (PN onlySan Miguel) as the between-groups factor, and time-point (baseline/pre-randomization [T1]; post-PN [3-months post-T1; T2], and 6- [T3] and 12-months [T4] follow-up after T2) as the within-groups factor. LCNC provides free, bilingual support to U.S. cancer survivors throughout the cancer journey. LCNC also refers survivors to services addressing their medical, economic and psychosocial needs, and monitors client contact and access outcomes. Preliminary Results: Study implementation, needs assessment, community based participatory research, recruitment to date, learned lessons, PN services offered, and referral to and effectiveness of the LCNC program will be presented. Discussion: Limited work has addressed the psychosocial needs of Latino cancer survivors. Culturally sensitive patient navigation could address these needs and significantly improve cancer survivorship.