JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Digital monitoring of treatment related symptoms and patient self-reported outcome gain importance for quality of care in cancer. The Consilium Care app engages cancer patients for standardized reporting of wellbeing and treatment related symptoms in outpatient settings.

Objective:

We compare the utility of two versions of a subsequently employed mobile application (app) for monitoring of electronically captured patient-reported outcome (ePRO), and test our hypothesis that an intended shared review of symptoms in patient-physician collaboration creates an impact on the number of data entries.

Methods:

For descriptive comparison of utility of two slightly different app versions information was made available from an early breast cancer trial (app version 1) and an ongoing study also including patients with advanced disease (version 2). In both app versions, patients and doctors were allowed to share the information from data entries during consultations. App version 2, however, randomly selected symptoms with request for a detailed and shared regular patient-doctor review in order to focus on collection and appropriate interpretation regarding awareness and guidance for severity grading. Number and type of symptom entries, satisfaction with both app versions and patients` perceived effects during consultations were included for the analysis. Symptom severity grading according to CTCAE was performed using a horizontal slider and indicated in descriptive terminology in both apps, while a graphical display facilitated the illustration of symptom history charts.

Results:

In total, 192 patients electronically reported 11`437 data entries on wellbeing and 33`380 data entries on individual symptoms. 628 (of 872 intended) requested patient-doctor symptom reviews were performed in App version 2. Both, the amount of data entries per patient and day for wellbeing (0.3 vs 1.0; p<0.001) and for symptoms appeared significantly higher in App version 2 (1.3 vs 1.9 data entries; p=0.04). Overall satisfaction with both app versions was high, although version 2 was perceived in general to be more helpful.

Conclusions:

The request of collaborative patient-doctor symptom review is likely to affect the number of digital symptom data entries. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov Trial number: NCT02004496 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02004496 ClinicalTrials.gov Trial number: NCT03578731 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03578731