A Feasibility Study Examining Storytelling Through Music with Bereaved Parents of Children with Cancer (RP212)

Outcomes 1. Participants will be able to demonstrate knowledge about the gaps in parental bereavement support.2. Participants will be able to describe the feasibility and process of implementing a community-based expressive arts bereavement intervention. Key Message Despite the high risk of negative health outcomes and national guidelines recommending bereavement care, the resources for bereaved parents are limited. Storytelling Through Music is a theoretically driven, innovative approach to help bereaved parents adapt to a life-long process of finding meaning after loss. Preliminary findings suggest intervention feasibility. Importance Bereaved parents have significantly higher morbidity and mortality than non-bereaved parents, and prolonged grief can occur in up to 40%. Despite national guidelines recommending bereavement care, the resources for bereaved parents are scarce. Objective(s) To evaluate the feasibility of a six-week intervention with parents of children who have died from cancer. Storytelling Through Music (STM) includes four weekly writing groups, self-care lessons, and pairing participants with a music therapist who creates a song from their written story. This unique combination of strategies facilitates continuing bonds and loss- and restoration-coping. Scientific Methods Utilized Two-group RCT utilizing mixed-methods design. Participants (N=30) are randomized to STM or control. Descriptive statistics were used for feasibility data. Results Seventeen parents have enrolled. The average age is 53.2 years (SD=11.4; 32-68), the majority are mothers (88%), partnered (76%), white (94%), with 29% reporting Hispanic ethnicity, and not religious (53%), but spiritual (94%). The child's average age was 19.9 years (SD=10.3; 1.5-35). Eighty-seven percent of intervention sessions have been attended. When examining intervention components, most participants felt the number of writing sessions was appropriate, reading their story aloud to the group was beneficial, and the song honored their child's legacy. Conclusion(s) STM is a theoretically driven, innovative approach to addressing grief in a high-risk, underserved population. The midpoint findings suggest intervention feasibility and acceptability. A limitation is the lack of racial/ethnic diversity. Future strategies will focus on recruiting a more diverse sample. Impact STM utilizes multiple modalities to help bereaved parents adapt to a life-long process of finding meaning after loss. Adding music to storytelling and narrative writing may provide a unique expression that has more effect on meta-affective and meta-cognitive coping than verbal and written expression alone. Future effectiveness studies will examine the effect on psychosocial and functional well-being, coping, and prolonged grief. Keywords Palliative care in oncology/Psychosocial support