Cancer, Caregiver, Digital Health, Palliative Care, Patient Reported Outcome Measures, Wearable Electronic Devices
Conditions
Brief summary
Non-professional carers (typically family members) play a critical role in providing adequate home care. This research explores the use of wearable sensors (WS) and electronic patient-reported outcome (ePRO) surveys to monitor stress levels of advanced cancer patient/carer dyads. During wear times, WS-triggered ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) were conducted via short smartphone-based surveys. This pilot study investigates the feasibility of EMAs in community palliative care.
Detailed description
Non-professional carers (typically family members) play a critical role in providing adequate home care along with professional caregivers. However, the physical and emotional toll of caring for a family member can lead to distress and burn out of the carer. The latter often results in the need for temporary or permanent institutional care of the patient. This research explores the feasibility of wearable sensors (WS) and electronic patient-reported outcome (ePRO) surveys to monitor activity patterns and stress levels of advanced cancer patient/caregiver dyads in order to understand their needs better. Throughout the study, wearable sensors are used to passively record physiological data from patient/carer dyads. During wear times, WS recordings trigger ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) conducted via surveys. This pilot investigates the feasibility and acceptability of EMAs in community palliative care and the potential for incorporating EMA-based interventions into routine care. Future studies may explore the possibility of ecological momentary interventions (EMIs) to trigger just-in-time targeted interventions.
Interventions
DEVICEGarmin VivoSmart 4
Wearable sensor to record; sleep, stress, heart rate etc.
DEVICEmema - ilumivu
mEMA is the a self-service platform running on both iOS and Android that is specifically designed for the administration of mobile Ecological Momentary Assessment or Experience Sampling research studies.
Sponsors
Royal North Shore Hospital
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Palliative care patient attending at Northern Sydney Cancer Centre, RNSH * Patient and carer dyad * Both patient and carer consent * Patient Karnofsky Performance Scale ≥ 50 * Patient and carer have compatible smart phone
Exclusion criteria
• Unwilling or unable to give informed consent
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Wearable compliance | 5 weeks | Wearable compliance (compliance defined HR signal detected for \>=70% of daytime hours between 7:30am to 7:30 pm) |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Quantitative and qualitative exploration of EMA/EMI acceptability | 2 hours | Exploration of EMA/EMI acceptability by patient/carer dyads quantitatively using experience surveys and qualitatively using an (optional) focus group. |
| Correlative analysis of WS signals and ePRO's | 5 weeks | Correlative analysis of WS signals and ePRO answers with focus on: * Intra-dyadic longitudinal trends (Is there correlation between metrics of a patient and their carer?) * EMA trigger incidences and distribution of ePRO-stated trigger reasons including false alarms of the whole cohort |
Countries
Australia
Outcome results
None listed