Development and feasibility of a web application to monitor patients’ cancer-related pain

Background In the outpatient setting, pain management is often inadequate in patients with cancer-related pain, because of patient- and professional-related barriers in communication and infrequent contacts. The internet may provide new opportunities for monitoring these patients. Purpose The purpos...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Supportive care in cancer 2018-02, Vol.26 (2), p.635-642
Main Authors: Oldenmenger, Wendy H., Baan, Mathilde A. G., van der Rijt, Carin C. D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Cancer
Cancer Pain - diagnosis
Cancer patients
Cohort Studies
Data Collection
Diaries
Feasibility studies
Female
Humans
Internet
Internet filtering software
Male
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Middle Aged
Monitoring, Physiologic - instrumentation
Monitoring, Physiologic - methods
Nursing
Nursing Research
Oncology
Original
Original Article
Pain
Pain management
Pain Management - trends
Pain Medicine
Patient education
Patient monitoring equipment
Patients
Rehabilitation Medicine
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Summary:Background In the outpatient setting, pain management is often inadequate in patients with cancer-related pain, because of patient- and professional-related barriers in communication and infrequent contacts. The internet may provide new opportunities for monitoring these patients. Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate whether internet monitoring of cancer-related pain in outpatients was feasible. Methods We developed an internet application that contained a pain diary, eConsult, and patient pain education. In the pain diary, patients scored their pain intensity (0–10 Numeric Rating Scale) and analgesic use daily and their side effects twice a week. Feasibility was defined as the percentage of diaries patients completed during the first 6 weeks. Results We included 100 outpatients. Sixteen were not evaluable due to cognitive problems (2); withdrawal of participation (2); internet problems (2), or because they were too ill (10). During the first 6 weeks, 60% of 84 evaluable patients completed their diary for at least 65% of the days (median number of diaries, 21; range, 3–42) and asked for a median of five eConsults (range, 0–37). Patients most frequently used an eConsult for questions about pain or side effects, how to use their analgesics and to improve their self-management. Over the 6-week period, current pain intensity decreased from 3.3 (SD = 2) to 2.5 (SD = 1.6, p  = 0.005), and worst pain intensity decreased from 5.7 (SD = 2) to 3.8 (SD = 2.0, p  
ISSN:0941-4355
1433-7339
DOI:10.1007/s00520-017-3877-3