Electronic Symptom Assessment in Children and Adolescents With Advanced Cancer Undergoing Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Abstract

Background/Purpose: Effective symptom assessment and management for children with advanced cancer undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is critical to minimize suffering. The purpose of this subanalysis was to compare feasibility of electronic data collection data and symptom prevalence, frequency, severity, and distress from children with advanced cancer undergoing HSCT with a non-HSCT cohort. Method: An abbreviated Pediatric Quality of Life and Evaluation of Symptoms Technology Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale was electronically administered every 2 weeks to children with advanced cancer. A subanalysis was conducted for the cohort of children who received autologous or allogeneic HSCT. Results: Forty-six participants completed 563 symptom assessments during the study. However, 11 of these 46 children received HSCT and completed 201 symptom assessments. The median age in the HSCT cohort was 12.7 years, 73% were female, and most children had a hematologic (45%) or solid tumor (45%) malignancy. Pain (35%), nausea (30%), sleeping difficulty (29%), and fatigue (22%) were the most commonly reported symptoms in children receiving HSCT. Children in the HSCT cohort had similar total, subscale, and individual symptom scores compared with children who did not receive HSCT. Certain domains of gastrointestinal symptoms (nausea, lack of appetite, and diarrhea) were higher for children receiving HSCT compared with children with advanced cancer not receiving HSCT ( p < .05). Conclusion: Elicitation of patient-reported symptom experiences using electronic methods improves nurses’ understanding of the symptom experience for children with advanced cancer undergoing HSCT and may promote timely assessment and treatment of distressing symptoms.

Striving to reduce suffering: A Phenomenological Study of nurses experience in caring for children with cancer in Ghana

“…These assessment findings include: fatigue, hair loss, depression, nausea, confusion, pain, anger, bleeding, diarrhoea and mouth sores/mucositis. Other findings were insomnia, neuropathy, neutropenia night sweats, weight loss and sensory changes that are found in patients who are on chemotherapy treatment (Linder & Wawrzynski, 2018; Silva et al., 2016; Ward et al., 2020). These participants' stories revealed that they played with the children and regularly watched the children to monitor their progress.…”

Identifying the Knowledge Structure and Trends of Nursing Informatics

“…Here, five potential topics are generated by topic analysis. Topic 1 (3170 studies) consists of subjectrelated studies, and various researches 39,40 presented lots of…”

“…Here, five potential topics are generated by topic analysis. Topic 1 (3170 studies) consists of subject-related studies, and various researches 39,40 presented lots of subjects such as patient, child, and family in nursing informatics. For the hospital-based research group (topic 2, 2555 studies), many studies focused on medical costs or medication errors 41,42 .…”

The Effect of Educational Intervention on Care Dependency and Symptom Management After Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Theory-Based Randomized Controlled Study

“…Similarly, Janicsâk et al (2013) have reported that patients' physical, social, emotional, and functional well-being decreased after HSCT [39]. In a study comparing the symptoms of cancer patients who underwent HSCT and those who did not undergo HSCT, Ward et al (2020) have reported that the "lack of appetite" score in patients who underwent HSCT was 10.66 ± 23.2, while other cancer patients' score was 6.07 ± 15.6 [40]. After HSCT, protective isolation was needed and this contributed to the physiological problems among patients [41].…”