Spots Global Cancer Trial Database for The Effects of a Nurse-led mHealth Program for Symptom Self-management of Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy

Study Description

Brief Summary: Breast cancer (BC) survivors will experience multiple symptoms following chemotherapy. During the pandemic of COVID-19, the closure of clinics and fear of infection lead to BC patients' challenges in self-managing their multiple symptoms in home settings. Mobile health (mHealth), without time and space limitation, plays a positive role in supporting self-management and treatment compliance. However, previous mHealth self-management studies did not report sustained beneficial effects with physician-led supervision. In oncology practice, the nurse-led model of patient self-management for breast cancer has been placed on greater emphasis. Accordingly, an innovative nurse-led supervised mHealth program was designed to support self-management for BC patients undergoing chemotherapy. This pilot study aims to examine the feasibility and acceptability of a nurse-led mHealth-based self-management program for BC patients receiving chemotherapy, in order to provide evidence for conducting a definitive trial. The feasibility outcomes of the pilot study include subject eligibility rate, recruitment rate, and retention rate. The efficacy outcomes relate to self-efficacy (primary outcome), symptom distress and frequency, as well as health-related quality of life, and healthcare utilisation. The qualitative outcomes encompass patient- and provider-users' perceptions of the app usability and subjects' experiences of engaging in the pilot study.

Detailed Description: This nurse-led mHealth symptom self-management program is composed of one core intervention 'mChemotherapy', one pre-chemotherapy consultation, and two follow-up visits. mChemotherapy will be specifically utilized to facilitate symptom self-management for breast cancer patients covering chemotherapy. The objectives of the pilot study are: (i) to develop an evidence-based nurse-led mHealth guideline for self-management of chemotherapy-related symptoms; (ii) to determine the usability of a nurse-led mobile application; (iii) to pilot the methodological procedures of the randomized controlled trial; (iv) to determine enrollment rate, the eligibility rate, retention rate, and dropout rate during the preliminary RCT participant recruitment and follow-up process; (v) to preliminarily test the effectiveness of this program on self-efficacy, QoL, symptom distress and symptom frequency, as well as healthcare utilization; (vi) to identify the participants' perceptions and acceptability of the pilot study; (vii) to provide suggestions and implications for a future multicentre large-scale RCT examining the definite effects of nurse-led mHealth self-management guidelines on self-efficacy, QoL, symptom distress and symptom frequency in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The pilot study aims to examine the following null hypotheses of efficacy outcomes: The BC patients in the mHealth group will demonstrate no difference in self-efficacy, quality of life, symptom distress and symptom frequency, as well as healthcare utilization after completing the chemotherapy at week 3 and week 6 when compared to the BC patients in the control group.

Keywords

Eligibility

Minimum Age: 18 Years

Eligible Ages: ADULT, OLDER_ADULT

Sex: ALL

Healthy Volunteers: No

Locations

Contact Details

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