Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer Using a Symptom Heuristics App: Provider Perceptions and Actions

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Digital Health
• Patient-Reported Outcomes

Background:

• Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer experience complex symptom burdens.
• Effective symptom management is crucial for improving treatment adherence and quality of life in AYAs with cancer.
• Current methods for capturing and communicating AYA symptom experiences to healthcare providers can be suboptimal.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate healthcare providers' perceptions of the usefulness and ease of use of a tablet-based symptom heuristics app.
• To compare AYAs' app-generated symptom reports with providers' clinical documentation of symptoms.
• To assess the impact of the app on patient engagement and symptom management discussions.

Main Methods:

• Multisite study involving 86 AYAs (15-29 years) using the Computerized Symptom Capture Tool (C-SCAT) before chemotherapy visits.
• Providers completed surveys on C-SCAT data usefulness and symptom discussion quality post-visit.
• Electronic health record review compared C-SCAT-identified symptoms with documented symptoms.

Main Results:

• 50% of providers found C-SCAT helpful in identifying patient symptoms, and 53% found it useful for identifying priority symptoms.
• Providers reported increased patient engagement and more focused symptom discussions.
• Priority symptoms and their management plans were documented more frequently when using C-SCAT (p < 0.01).

Conclusions:

• The C-SCAT enhanced healthcare providers' understanding of AYAs' cancer symptom experiences.
• The app facilitated improved symptom documentation and management planning.
• Further research is warranted to confirm C-SCAT's effectiveness in improving symptom management outcomes for AYAs with cancer.