Cancer is one of the leading obstacles to increasing life expectancy, with ~19.9 million new cases and 9.7 million deaths worldwide in 2022 (Sung et al., 2021; Bray et al., 2024). Conceivably, the psychological burden of cancer patients is heavy, caused not only by confronting major life stressors or threats but also by many other factors, including the physical dimension, treatment dimension, as well as economic and interpersonal communication aspects (Emery et al., 2022). For the physical dimension, it is estimated that 32%−90% of patients experience cancer-related fatigue, and 35%−96% of patients suffer from cancer-related neuropathy or bone pain, which enhances psychological pressure (Henson et al., 2020; Renna et al., 2022; Wu et al., 2022). Concerning the treatment dimension, postoperative complications and medication/radiotherapy-induced side effects lead to increased perceived pressure and a sense of loss in cancer patients (Wagland et al., 2015; Henson et al., 2020). Moreover, financial burdens and social isolation aggravate the psychological pressure of cancer patients (Abrams et al., 2021; Liang et al., 2022). More importantly, the heavy psychological burden, commonly manifested by anxiety and depression, is linked with treatment discontinuation, disease recurrence, and death of cancer patients (Morrison et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2020). In addition, an unpleasant quality of life frequently occurs in cancer patients, which is adversely affected by the aforementioned influencing factors and psychological pressure as well (van Montfort et al., 2020; Carbajal-Lopez et al., 2022; Jiang et al., 2023; Licu et al., 2023). Studies have reported that poor quality of life and anxiety and depression are prevalent in patients with cancers (Zheng et al., 2020; Li Y. et al., 2022; Fu et al., 2023). Consequently, developing oncology care plans and providing proper intervention to help cancer patients cope with psychological pressure as well as improve their quality of life is quite necessary (Mullen et al., 2023).

Reminiscence therapy, developed by Robert Butler in 1963 and initially applied in the elderly population with cognitive impairment, is a life-reviewing caring approach that encourages subjects to recall autobiographical events (Cuevas et al., 2020; Yan et al., 2023). This intervention has been widely used in patients with cognitive impairment, such as Alzheimer's disease, post-stroke cognitive impairment, and dementia (Smallfield et al., 2024). During the intervention procedure, it was surprisingly noticed that reminiscence therapy can relieve psychological pressure and enhance the self-confidence of participants (Tam et al., 2021). Gradually, reminiscence therapy has been introduced in cancer patients to alleviate anxiety/depression and improve quality of life, which has served as optional management to improve the lives of patients with cancers (Xiao et al., 2013; Vuksanovic et al., 2017; Kleijn et al., 2018; Dong et al., 2019; Liu and Li, 2021; Zhang et al., 2021; Zhao, 2021; Zhou and Sun, 2021; Chen et al., 2022; Guo et al., 2022; Huang et al., 2022; Li T. et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2022; Zheng et al., 2022; Babaei et al., 2023; Wu and Zhang, 2023). For instance, one study discloses reduced anxiety score, anxiety rate, and depression score, as well as elevated quality of life in colorectal cancer patients who receive reminiscence therapy compared to those treated with control care, while the depression rate is similar between them (Zhou and Sun, 2021). Another study shows that reminiscence therapy decreases anxiety score and anxiety rate, but it does not affect depression score or depression rate in surgical gastric cancer patients (Zhang et al., 2021). Differently, one previous study indicates that no difference is observed in anxiety score, depression score, or quality of life between cancer patients undergoing reminiscence therapy and usual care (Kleijn et al., 2018).

To date, only one previous meta-analysis has indicated that reminiscence therapy ameliorates anxiety and depression and improves the quality of life in cancer patients (Sun et al., 2023). However, the aforementioned meta-analysis includes articles from 2010 to 2021 (Sun et al., 2023), and a number of relevant studies (n = 8) published after 2021 have not yet been included in a pooled analysis (Chen et al., 2022; Guo et al., 2022; Huang et al., 2022; Li Y. et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2022; Zheng et al., 2022; Babaei et al., 2023; Wu and Zhang, 2023).

In this study, this meta-analysis summarized the existing randomized control trials (RCTs), intending to comprehensively evaluate the effect of a reminiscence therapy-involved program (RTIP) on anxiety, depression, and the quality of life in cancer patients.

Reminiscence therapy is a process in which individuals reflect on their lives and past experiences with the aid of music, photographs, videos, and other props. This therapy traces the core theory of “life review,” which can help promote a sense of integrity and adjustment (Zhong et al., 2023). As a non-pharmacological intervention, reminiscence therapy typically targets older adults with mental health difficulties.

However, its application in cancer patients has attracted increasing attention (Guo et al., 2022; Zheng et al., 2022; Wu and Zhang, 2023; Yan et al., 2023). For example, one study demonstrated that reminiscence therapy decreases both anxiety and depression scores in the first month and sixth months after intervention compared to routine care in patients with digestive system cancer (Zheng et al., 2022). Another study discloses reduced anxiety and depression in elderly lung cancer patients treated with reminiscence therapy compared with those receiving usual care (Guo et al., 2022). This meta-analysis found that RTIP with or without control care reduced the score and rate of anxiety and depression compared to control care in cancer patients. The probable explanations were as follows: (i) The procedure of RTIP involved the recall and sharing of selected personal memories and stories, which facilitated a more positive view of life (Kleijn et al., 2018). (ii) In addition, RTIP also drew past, present, and future together, which contributed to ego integrity and assisted patients in adapting to disease-related losses. (iii) During the process of RTIP, cancer patients perceived caring and support from the medical workers, which reduced their feelings of isolation (Laidlaw et al., 2023). Combining these aspects, RTIP with or without control care attenuated the score and rate of anxiety and depression compared to control care in cancer patients.

Impaired quality of life is another common concern in cancer patients (Suarez-Almazor et al., 2021). One previous study identifies that reminiscence therapy elevates the QLQ-C30 global health status score compared with usual control in recurrent gastric cancer patients (Wu and Zhang, 2023). Another clinical study noted that the overall quality of life does not vary between reminiscence therapy and usual care in cancer patients (Kleijn et al., 2018). The meta-analysis elucidated that RTIP with or without control care elevated the overall quality of life compared to control care in cancer patients. The possible reasons might be that symptoms of anxiety and depression adversely affect the overall quality of life (Polanski et al., 2018; van Montfort et al., 2020; Carbajal-Lopez et al., 2022). However, as described above, RTIP effectively alleviated anxiety and depression in cancer patients, which led to improved psychological wellbeing. Subsequently, the overall quality of life was improved in cancer patients who underwent RTIP.

Besides, it is worth discussing that RTIP can be conducted individually, one-on-one with a therapeutic listener, or in a group form, and the choice of modality is controversial. Some clinicians think that the treatment effect may be compromised in a group setting, as patients may not be willing to share their privacy and personal feelings with others (Ando et al., 2007). Conversely, other medical workers argue that RTIP in a group setting is beneficial for both patients and implementers. Patients can encourage each other and build closer social relationships, while the group setting allows for more efficient use of resources for the implementers compared to one-on-one sessions (Rubin et al., 2019).

Therefore, further research is needed to address these differing perspectives. Another important consideration is that implementing RTIP requires additional medical resources. Therefore, relevant studies are warranted to explore whether the clinical benefits of patients outweigh the medical costs of such interventions.

The current meta-analysis also conducted moderator analysis based on the sessions of intervention sessions (≤ 12 or >12) and the practice approach (hospital-based or others). The data suggested that the effect of RTIP on the anxiety score and overall quality of life was not affected by the number of intervention sessions or the practice approach. However, RTIP showed no effect on anxiety rate in studies with intervention sessions ≤12 and on depression scores in studies using non-hospital-based approaches. These findings indicate that RTIP might be more effective with intervention sessions >12 and a hospital-based approach. Therefore, clinicians might consider encouraging patients to undergo hospital-based RTIP with longer intervention sessions to maximize the effectiveness of this treatment.

A previous meta-analysis of RCTs revealed that reminiscence therapy reduced anxiety and depression scores while promoting overall quality of life in patients with cancers; however, this previous meta-analysis only included studies published before 2021 (Sun et al., 2023). Therefore, we conducted an updated meta-analysis and found similar findings: RTIP decreased anxiety and depression and improved the overall quality of life in cancer patients. Based on these meta-analyses, the application of RTIP could be recommended in cancer patients to improve psychological health and overall quality of life, especially using a hospital-based approach with longer intervention sessions. Despite the overall good quality of evidence and the absence of no publication bias in each outcome, some limitations should be mentioned. First, blinding was difficult to implement, resulting in a high risk or unclear risk of performance bias in the included studies. Second, the sample size of most included studies was relatively small.

Consequently, larger-scale studies should be conducted to verify these findings. Third, due to the limited amount of evidence, the influence of some particular intervention details, such as RTIP session compositions, length, and frequency, on treatment efficacy could not be evaluated in this meta-analysis. Fourth, due to the limited number of studies, subgroup analysis in patients with cancers other than the digestive system could not be performed. Future studies should investigate the effects of RTIP in patients with other types of cancers. Fifth, articles published in other languages might have been excluded. Further studies could consider using artificial intelligence to bridge the language gap. Finally, since the data based on age, sample size, and different reminiscence content could not be combined, a moderator analysis based on these variables could not be performed.

In summary, RTIP efficiently improves the psychological health and overall quality of life in cancer patients. This therapy can be included in oncology care plans to meet multidimensional care needs and enhance the general health condition of cancer patients. Future studies should consider investigating whether different materials used in the intervention, different facilitators, and the frequency of intervention could affect the outcomes of RTIP in cancer patients.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

XS: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft. WS: Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft. MY: Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Resources, Writing – original draft. LX: Conceptualization, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing.