Introduction: People from cultural and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds experience poorer health outcomes after a cancer diagnosis compared to people from Anglo-Australian backgrounds, while also experiencing significant social isolation and higher levels of unmet supportive care needs. This disparity is related to related to language barriers, lower health literacy, limited culturally adapted resources and services, lack of awareness of disease-related health impacts, and cultural stigmas about seeking help.
Aim: To evaluate the acceptability and perceived benefit of the Stronger Bodies, Stronger Bonds program, including its impact on knowledge, understanding, attitudes, behavioural intentions, and social connectedness.
Methods: This project partners with CanRevive Inc., a consumer organisation that supports Chinse-speaking people with cancer. The Stronger Bodies, Stronger Bonds program is a culturally adapted wellbeing and social connectedness program for Chinese-speaking cancer survivors, that consists of six workshops delivered across four CanRevive locations in Greater Sydney. Workshop topics include fatigue management, structured exercise, creative drama for wellbeing, traditional Chinese movement and breathing techniques, nutrition and diet, and stress reduction and psychological health. Each workshop series permits up to 15 participants (n=60 across all four locations). Quantitative measures include the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the Social Connectedness Scale, and tailored knowledge questionnaires administered pre- and post- each workshop, and pre- and post- the six-week program.
Results: Data collection is ongoing. Preliminary results from n=30 participants (two sites) will be presented at the COSA conference. Exploratory analyses will describe changes in knowledge, understanding, attitudes, behavioural intentions, and social connectedness after each workshop, and across the entire program.
Conclusion: Findings will inform the acceptability and effectiveness of co-designed, culturally adapted educational workshops to improve knowledge and awareness of supportive cancer care interventions, improve social connectedness. Results may also inform the suitability of this approach for supporting cancer survivors from other CALD backgrounds.