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Effects of an internet support system to assist cancer patients in reducing symptom distress: a randomized controlled
Cornelia M Ruland1, Trine Andersen, Annette Jeneson
1Center for Shared Decision Making and Collaborative Care, Oslo University Hospital, Norway. cornelia.ruland@rr-research.no
Background:
Cancer patients experience many physical and psychosocial problems for which they need support. WebChoice is an Internet-based, interactive health communication application that allows cancer patients to monitor their symptoms and problems, provides individually tailored information and self-management support, e-communication with expert cancer nurses, and an e-forum for group discussion with other patients.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to examine the effects of WebChoice on symptom distress (primary outcome), depression, self-efficacy, health-related quality of life, and social support (secondary outcomes).
Methods:
In this 1-year repeated-measures randomized controlled trial, 325 breast and prostate cancer patients were randomized into 1 experimental group with access to WebChoice and 1 control group who received URLs of publicly available cancer Web sites.
Results:
Group differences on symptom distress were significant only for the global symptom distress index on the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (slope estimate, -0.052 [95% confidence interval, -0.101 to -0.004]; t = 4.42; P = .037). There were no significant group differences on secondary outcomes. Additional analyses showed significant within-group improvements in depression in the experimental group only. In the control group, self-efficacy and health-related quality of life deteriorated significantly over time.
Conclusion:
This randomized controlled trial is one of the first to evaluate effects of an interactive health communication application to support cancer patients in illness management on symptoms. Although only 1 hypothesis was partially supported, the combined results show a clear trend toward better scores in the intervention group on most outcome measures.
Implications For Practice:
If findings can be supported with additional research, WebChoice may become an important tool to support nursing care that can equip cancer patients to better manage their illness.
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