LIVING WELL: A Web-Based Program to Improve Quality of Life in Ovarian Cancer Survivors

About the Study

LIVING WELL is a free research program offering mindfulness, coping, and healthy lifestyle skills for ovarian cancer survivors. The goal of the study is to determine if the program can improve quality of life. You can participate from your home! Trained facilitators lead groups of 5-8 ovarian cancer survivors using web video (Zoom) for 10 weekly 1.5-2-hour group sessions.  To be eligible you should have completed your initial chemotherapy within the last 5 years and have not had more than one recurrence.

What the Study Involves

Participants are assigned randomly to one of two programs: 

1. Mindful Living focuses on strategies and techniques for managing stress, coping, and social support.
2. Healthy Lifestyles focuses on nutrition, exercise, sleep, integrative medicine, and developing goals for healthy living.

• Each program includes an orientation session, 10 weekly 1.5-2-hour videoconference sessions on Zoom, 2 follow-up sessions, and activities to practice at home. 
• Group sessions are led by trained psychologists or health educators. Group size is 5-8 people.
• The study can lend you a tablet for the program if you don’t have a computer or tablet. We will teach you how to use Zoom if you don’t know how and provide any technical support you need.
• Because this is a research study, you will also be asked to complete surveys before the 10-week program, immediately after the 10-week program, and 1 year after the program.

Study Locations

You can participate by videoconference from anywhere in North America.

Lead Researchers

Principal Investigator: Susan Lutgendorf, PhD, University of Iowa

• Diagnosis of ovarian, fallopian tube, or peritoneal cancer
• Have completed primary treatment (surgery and chemotherapy, chemotherapy alone, or in certain cases, surgery alone) within the last 5 years
• Have not had more than one recurrence. If you have had a recurrence, you must have completed chemotherapy/treatment for your recurrence (ongoing maintenance therapy is allowed)
• Can speak English
• Willing to be placed into one of the two groups and followed for 12 months
• Age 18-90

• Current major depression (history of depression is not an exclusion as long as the individual is not currently depressed)
• Diagnosis of dementia
• History of prior inpatient psychiatric treatment for severe mental illness (for example, psychosis) or current psychosis
• History of substance use disorder (cannot control the use of legal or illegal drugs, alcohol or medications) in the last 2 years or current substance dependence
• History of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia in the last 2 years or current bipolar disorder or schizophrenia