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Completed

NCT Number: NCT04464486

Remote COVID-19 Symptom Tracking for Cancer Patients at Home During the Pandemic

This project will evaluate the benefit of an automated home symptom monitoring system, Symptom Care at Home, to track COVID-19 symptoms, provide instructions to reduce COVID-19 exposure, and reduce cancer symptom severity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The investigators will determine if Symptom Care at Home decreases the need for cancer patients to use emergency departments and hospitalization for cancer symptom care. The project addresses the urgent public health need for cancer patients to reduce their risk for COVID-19 exposure.

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Key information

Conditions

Oncology Neoplasms

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Huntsman Cancer Institute

Salt Lake City, Utah, 84132, United States

About this study

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an opportunity to rapidly flex platforms for remote cancer symptom tracking and management to incorporate COVID-19 symptom monitoring and reinforce risk-reducing precautions. It is critical for cancer patients at home to monitor early indications of COVID-19 symptoms, to adhere to mitigation strategies, as well as to manage their cancer-related symptoms so that patients can decrease the need to utilize the emergency department or unplanned hospitalizations for symptom care, which is a common occurrence during cancer care. Remote monitoring adds a layer of home-based support which can benefit all cancer patients and is not restricted to geographic proximity to oncology providers or distance from a cancer center. The Symptom Care at Home (SCH) system, utilized for the Principal Investigator's currently funded R01CA206522 project to monitor and manage patient-reported (PRO) cancer symptoms, includes these necessary elements: remote PRO symptom monitoring, patient self-management information, and oncology provider (nurse practitioner) notification of symptoms exceeding pre-set thresholds. The overall purpose of this project is to describe the impacts of COVID-19 on cancer patients' well-being at home and evaluate, through a randomized clinical trial, if a systematic patient-reported outcomes (PRO) reporting process improves cancer care during a pandemic as compared to usual care. Specific Aims include: 1) describe patient-reported COVID-19 and cancer symptom trajectories over time, COVID-19 social distancing and hygiene practices, and COVID-19 related cancer treatment and daily living impacts on cancer patients receiving the SCH-COVID intervention and 2) compare the SCH-COVID intervention to enhanced usual care on health care utilization, COVID-19 diagnosis and outcomes, cancer treatment delays or changes, and patient-reported global health, anxiety, mood, and feelings of social isolation.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Participants will be patients who are receiving treatment for a cancer diagnosis at Huntsman Cancer Hospital.
  • Must be able to speak, read, and understand English language.
  • Must have a smartphone and be willing and able to download the SCH application and enter data into the application OR must be willing to make phone calls to report symptoms using the telephone interactive voice response (IVR) system.

Exclusion criteria

  • Patients enrolled in another study protocol that prohibits participation in other trials.
  • Patients under the age of 18.

Treatment and study plan

SCH Intervention

Other

In addition to receiving usual care from their oncologist and staff, the SCH intervention group will report COVID-19 and cancer-related symptom presence and severity daily into the automated SCH system. Participants in the intervention receive automated self-management support messages for symptoms reported. In addition, COVID-19 symptoms and poorly controlled or worsening cancer symptoms will generate alerts. Based on preset thresholds, alerts automatically generate immediately from the patient's daily call data. The study nurse practitioners (NPs) monitor alerts. The NPs provide follow-up care using the guideline based SCH symptom clinical decision support system. The NPs log into the SCH Alert and Call Data website which displays all of the patients who have called that day and met an alert threshold. The NP calls the patient, delivers symptom management care by phone, and documents care in the patients' electronic health records.

Other names: Symptom Care at Home Intervention

Primary outcomes

  1. Health Care Utilization Comparison

    Time frame: 5 months

    Retrospective chart review of health care utilization of both groups

Secondary outcomes

  1. Patient Social Isolation

    Time frame: Monthly for 5 months

    Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System- Short Form v2.0 Social Isolation- 6a. The PROMIS Social Isolation item bank assesses perceptions of being avoided, excluded, detached, disconnected from, or unknown by, others. The item bank does not use a time frame (e.g. over the past seven days) when assessing social isolation. A higher PROMIS T-score represents more of the concept being measured. For negatively-worded concepts like Social Isolation, a T-score of 60 is one SD worse than average. By comparison, a Social Isolation Tscore of 40 is one SD better than average.

  2. COVID-19 Symptoms, Social distancing and Hygiene Practices

    Time frame: Daily for 5 months

    Patient reported outcomes collected in automated SCH system daily of COVID-19 symptoms, social distancing and hygiene practices, and COVID-19 related cancer treatment impacts and daily living impacts on cancer patients receiving the SCH -COVID intervention. The investigators will describe patterns of cancer patients and their adherence to social distancing and hygiene practices over time.

  3. Patient Global Health

    Time frame: Monthly 5 months

    Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Scale v1.2- Global Health Survey Short Form 10. High scores reflect better functioning. To find the total raw score for these scales with all questions answered, sum the values of the response to each question for a given respondent.

  4. Patient Anxiety/Depression

    Time frame: Monthly 5 months

    Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) measurement of psychological distress in non-psychiatric patients.

  5. Impact of Pandemic and Health Related Quality of Life

    Time frame: Baseline then 3 months and 5 months from baseline

    COVID-19: Impact of the Pandemic and Health Related Quality Of Life (HRQOL) in Cancer Patients and Survivors

  6. Cancer symptom severity

    Time frame: Daily for 5 months.

    Patient reported outcomes collected in automated SCH system daily of cancer symptom severity on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being no pain and 10 being worst pain imaginable. Description of symptom severity over time will be reported

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Utah

Other

Registry information

Official study title

Remote COVID-19 Symptom Tracking and Improved Cancer Symptom Control for Cancer Patients at Home During the Pandemic

Important dates

Study start
2020
Primary completion
2021
Study completion
2022
First posted
Jul 9, 2020
Registry last updated
Nov 8, 2023

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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