JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Patients waiting for chemotherapy can experience stress, anxiety, nausea, and pain. Acupressure and meditation have been shown to control such symptoms.

Objective:

To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of using a mobile app to provide patients with self-care tools in chemotherapy waiting rooms to alleviate adverse symptoms.

Methods:

We screened and enrolled cancer patients in chemotherapy waiting rooms at two Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center locations and randomized them into an intervention arm in which subjects watched fully automated acupressure and meditation instructional videos or a control arm in which they watched a time and attention-matched integrative oncology lecture video. Before and after watching the video(s), patients were asked to rate four key symptoms: stress, anxiety, nausea, and pain through a self-assessed questionnaire. We performed the analysis of the covariance to detect differences between two arms post-intervention while controlling for baseline symptoms.

Results:

223 patients were enrolled into the study: 113 to the intervention arm and 110 to the control arm. In both groups, patients showed significant reductions in stress and anxiety from baseline (all p<0.05), with the treatment arm reporting greater stress and anxiety reduction compared to the control arm (1.64 vs. 1.15 in stress reduction, p=0.012; 1.39 vs. 0.78 in anxiety reduction, p=0.0015). The majority of patients reported the videos helped them pass time and would watch again.

Conclusions:

An integrative medicine self-care mobile app in the waiting room improved patients’ experiences and reduced anxiety and stress. Future research could focus on expanding this platform to other settings to improve patients’ overall treatment experiences.