Digital Attention Bias in Cancer Survivors Intervention for Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors: Protocol for a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND

Adolescent and young adult cancer survivors face a high burden of psychological late effects, with cancer-related anxiety being a prevalent mental health concern. Despite the significant need for care, more than half of adolescent and young adult cancer survivors, who require psychosocial services, remain untreated. Digital health interventions offer a promising solution to bridge this care gap. Attention bias modification (ABM) is an evidence-based digital intervention for anxiety disorders. This intervention targets automatic and unconscious negative attention biases and retrains attention away from threat and toward neutral or positive stimuli. Recent research has successfully adapted ABM interventions for cancer survivors. However, ABM has not yet been adapted or tested for adolescent and young adult cancer survivors.

OBJECTIVE

This protocol describes a pilot randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate a novel digital anxiety intervention, the Attention Bias in Cancer survivors (ABCs) intervention, for adolescent and young adult cancer survivors.

METHODS

This is a single-site, 2-arm, pilot randomized controlled trial enrolling 60 cancer survivors aged 15 to 29 years. Participants will be randomized 1:1 to the ABCs intervention or a sham control condition. The ABCs intervention combines an ABM mobile intervention with daily gratitude and savoring SMS text messages (positive psychology prompts to savor positive emotions) over a 4-week period. The sham condition consists of sham ABM (showing the same cancer-related word stimuli as the active intervention condition but without attention retraining) and daily mood monitoring SMS text messages (prompts to report on current mood and stress levels). The primary objectives are to evaluate intervention feasibility (defined as ≥50% enrollment and ≥70% retention) and acceptability (defined by cutoff scores on the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire and System Usability Scale). Secondary exploratory outcomes include patient-reported measures of attention bias, anxiety, fear of recurrence, pain, resilience, and other psychosocial outcomes.

RESULTS

This study was funded in August 2023, and study recruitment began in November 2024. We have completed data collection as of February 2026. We anticipate that data analyses will be completed by September 2026. Manuscript preparation and submission are anticipated for December 2026.

CONCLUSIONS

This pilot trial examines the feasibility and acceptability of a digital positive psychological intervention targeting anxiety in adolescent and young adult cancer survivors. Exploratory outcomes will inform sample size calculations for a future-powered multisite clinical trial. The ABCs intervention may provide scalable and accessible evidence-based psychosocial care and improve health outcomes.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06682039; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06682039.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/82665.