Preliminary effects of a yoga intervention for lung cancer dyads: benefits for care partners

Purpose Lung cancer is a disease with high mortality and morbidity, impacting both the patient and their closest contact, referred to in this paper as their care partner. There is limited evidence on how to support mental health and quality of life (QOL) for patient-care partner dyads during cancer treatment. This pilot study examines yoga as an intervention to improve well-being for the dyad. Methods A single-group, 12-week pilot trial of yoga for patients and their care partners recruited from two hospitals during cancer treatment ( N = 23 patient-partner dyads or 46 individuals). Most care partners were spouses (70%), with the remainder being adult children (22%), a sibling (4%), or a friend (4%). Descriptive statistics, Cohen’s d effect sizes, and paired t -tests for validated psychosocial measures were calculated at baseline and 12 weeks. Results Sixty-five percent of dyads ( N = 13) completed the study, with withdrawals mostly due to disease progression. Among care partners, there was a decrease in depression symptomology on the PHQ-8 ( p = 0.015, Cohen’s d = 0.96) and improvement in QOL on the Caregiver QOL-Cancer scale ( p = 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.61). Fifty percent of dyads experienced concordant improvement in depressive symptoms and 77% in QOL. Conclusion Patient-partner yoga is a promising intervention for improving mental health and QOL for patient-partner dyads among lung cancer survivors. This study demonstrates yoga to be acceptable, feasible, and with high concordance within patient-partner dyads for improvements in QOL. Yoga shows promise for patients and care partners to alleviate the negative psychosocial impacts of lung cancer, though more research is needed to confirm effects. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03649737, 12/9/2020.