The Efficacy of Retreat for Low-Income Women with Breast Can

Institution: California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute
Investigator(s): Ellen  Levine , Ph.D., M.P.H. - Shoshana  Levenberg , B.S.N. -
Award Cycle: 1997 (Cycle III) Grant #: 3AB-2801 Award: $87,499
Award Type: CRC Pilot Award
Research Priorities
Sociocultural, Behavioral, and Psychological Issues>Sociocultural, Behavioral, and Psychological Issues: the human side

This is a collaboration with: 3AB-2800 -

Initial Award Abstract (1997)
The Charlotte Maxwell Clinic is a non-profit organization that offers complementary care, such as massage and acupuncture. to low income women with cancer. The Clinic does not treat cancer but rather offers relief from the side effects of cancer and its treatments -- nausea, pain and fatigue. What happens in the Clinic’s treatment rooms is magical: being touched and cared for with kindness, competence and respect. What happens in the waiting lounge is at least as important: the transformative power of women connecting, telling their stories. sharing their laughter and pain. The Clinic has an active census of 60 low-income women, 40 of whom have breast cancer. At least 25 of those women are eager to plan and participate in a 3-day retreat offering information, resources and coping strategies for living with breast cancer.

The idea of a retreat to assist women living with chronic disease is based largely upon the success of WORLD, a grassroots organization by and for women with HIV, which has held ten 3-day retreats in the last 5 years. Our retreat will be planned by a committee of clients and staff from the clinic, all of whom are living with cancer. That every planner has personally faced the day-to-day challenges of cancer is the critical element in ensuring a genuine sense of community ownership from the beginning. The retreat itself will have numerous workshops, such as "Partnering with your Doctor", "Treatment Options", and benefits counseling, all to be identified by the planning committee. In addition to sharing information, it will be a time for women to connect, in small and large groups, to share both fears and hopes in a safe place. We see the retreat as simply one tool for breaking the life-draining isolation of living with cancer. It is not an end unto itself and for many women it will be a beginning. We hope to build on this beginning by studying the effectiveness of the retreat. We will ask the women who attend to evaluate how helpful the retreat was for them.

We will also contact the women one month after the retreat and ask them if they have been able to obtain needed resources. We hope to use the results of this project to obtain additional funding in order to expand our study of the benefits of such community-based interventions.


Final Report (1998)
This investigation explored the benefits of a retreat for low-income women with breast cancer. The aims of the project were to identify the needs of low-income women with breast cancer have that are not being met by the community at large (e.g., medical care, social support services, transportation, food, child care, etc.), and to determine the acceptability and impact of a retreat designed for low-income women with breast cancer on mood, helplessness/hopelessness, feelings of self-efficacy, and self-determination.

The first phase of the project was to delineate the problems end challenges faced by low-income women with breast cancer. This was accomplished through a working group of low-income women with cancer, who defined the problems that they faced. After these problems were defined, a three-day retreat was designed by this group of women. The second phase of the project included the retreat itself.

Forty-six women participated in a three-day retreat designed by low-income women with breast cancer. The retreat included workshops and experiences with alternative therapies. At the end of the retreat, women felt that they were more able to cope with problems related to their cancer. The women felt less psychologically distressed (e.g., less anxious, depressed, confused, fatigued, etc.) at the end of the retreat than they had at the beginning of the retreat. These differences were statistically significant. The women were contacted two months after the retreat, and asked about their ability to cope with the problems defined initially, and about their mood state. Two months after the retreat, the women felt that their problems were less than before the retreat, and the increased positive mood continued. We hope that this project will be the first in a continuing effort to elucidate the special needs of low-income women with breast cancer, and to develop effective interventions with this population.