SWEET

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Supporting Women with adhErence to hormonE Therapy following breast cancer (SWEET)

• IRAS ID

  307011

• Contact name

  Linda Sharp

• Contact email

  linda.sharp@ncl.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 3 months, 30 days

• Research summary

  In 2016, 11,563 women died from breast cancer in the UK. Most would have been prescribed hormone therapy (HT); sometimes known as endocrine therapy, which blocks the effect of oestrogen on breast cancer cells. HT is prescribed as a daily tablet, usually for at least five years and often up to 10 years. When women stop taking HT prematurely, or don’t take it as prescribed (known as “poor adherence”), they have up to a three times higher chance of the cancer returning and dying from cancer. At least 20% of women have poor adherence after two years and around 50% by five years.

  Our previous research has identified reasons for poor adherence, including: feeling negative or concerned about HT; not fully understanding its importance; side-effects; feeling unsupported; and forgetfulness. SWEET is an NIHR funded a research programme, which supported by a Patient Advisory Group and Clinical Reference Group, will develop and test a support package to support women take ET as recommended. SWEET will be delivered over 6 workstreams.

  This application refers to the second workstream of the SWEET research programme, aiming to test the feasibility and acceptability of a person-centred, evidence-based, and theoretically informed intervention utlising an initial consultation, telephone follow up consultation, and web-app to reduce poor AET adherence, and improve cancer-specific health related quality of life in women with breast cancer.

  The feasibility study will run at up to five NHS clinical sites and use mixed methods to inform the potential for a larger randomised controlled trial (RCT), answering the following key questions:

  (i) can we identify and recruit potentially eligible patients?
  (ii) is it feasible to deliver the initial face-to-face intervention consultation within 8 weeks of recruitment?
  (iii) are the baseline and follow-up questionnaires acceptable?
  (iv) do women find the different components of the intervention acceptable and useful?
  (v) what is the timeliness and quality of primary care prescription encashment data, and is it possible to use this to compute an objective measure of adherence to AET?

• REC name

  South Central - Hampshire A Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  22/SC/0150

• Date of REC Opinion

  4 May 2022

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion