Psycho-educational groups for patients with cancer: what are the principles, objectives and practical framework?

Due to the variety of psychological difficulties encountered by cancer patients during and after cancer treatments, psycho-oncologists have to diversify the range of their offer of care. In France, psycho-oncology offers in response to patients' distress consisted of a long time of individual approaches. In relation with the clinical experiments undertaken in many other countries, a certain number of group approaches represent a complementary approach to answer to the patients' needs. This article describes the structure and the contains of a group intervention. Largely inspired by cognitive-behavioural techniques and group techniques, it consists of thematic discussions, information and education, and the teaching of stress management techniques such as relaxation, assertivity, problem solving and cognitive restructuration. The aim of this article is to help other clinicians to settle psychoeducational groups in oncology, since patients' satisfaction and perceived benefits appear to be very high in that field.