Text Messaging (SMS) Helping Cancer Care in Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy Treatment: a Pilot Study

Abstract

Cancer treatment is an extremely stressful life experience that is accompanied by a range of psychological, social, physical, and practical difficulties. Cancer patients need to receive information that helps them to better understand the disease, assists them in decision-making, and helps them deal with treatment. Patients are interested in receiving such information. The degree of satisfaction with the information received has been associated with positive health outcomes, specifically regarding quality of life, severity of side effects, and psychological well-being. This study investigates a method of guiding cancer patients, in relation to outpatient chemotherapy treatment, using SMS (short message service) text messaging. A smartphone application called cHEmotHErApp was developed, and its primary function is to send out SMS text messages with guidance for self-care and emotional support for oncology patients undergoing chemotherapy. Thus, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the acceptance and perception of patients of the receipt of these SMS messages, as well as to evaluate the possible benefits reported by the participants. Adult patients diagnosed with cancer, who started the first outpatient chemotherapy treatment scheme between August and November 2016 at the School Hospital (HE) of the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), were invited to participate in this pilot study. In total, 14 cancer patients were adherent to this study. Each of these patients received a daily text message on their cell phone with some guidance on encouraging self-care and emotional support. Patients reported that, because of the SMS text messages they received, they felt more confident in their treatment, felt more supported and encouraged, and that the text messages facilitated self-care. In addition, patients reported that the SMS text messages they received helped them to take better care of themselves and to continue further treatment.

Use of Text Messaging (SMS) for the Management of Side Effects in Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy Treatment: a Randomized Controlled Trial

“…In our previous study, we showed the acceptance and perception of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy on an outpatient basis receiving daily text messages about prevention and managing side effects, as well as emotional support [30]. Some patients reported, through text messages, they felt more confident in treatment, felt supported and encouraged, therefore facilitating self-care.…”

“…Several approaches based on text messaging (SMS)method for communication have been used in cancer treatment, both in preventive measures [21][22][23][24][25][26] and in clinical care situations [27][28][29][30]. Specifically in chemotherapy, there are different intervention methods that employ SMS to monitor side effects as nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms, as well as in relation to patient adherence to their treatment.…”

“…Thus, all patients participating in that study reported receiving text messages helped them better cope with treatment because they received useful self-care information about treatment through text messages. In addition, the adherent patients reported they would recommend these text messages to other patients initiating chemotherapy for cancer [30].…”

Organizational challenges to equity in the delivery of services within a new personalized risk-based approach to breast cancer screening

“…One interviewee proposed setting up a national telephone resource offering specialized expertise regardless of location. Specifically, electronic technologies enabling communication over distance between women and persons offering clinical or psychosocial support should be considered, by phone (Davis et al 2015;Casey et al 2017), text messaging (SMS) (Hall, Cole-Lewis, and Bernhardt 2015;Rico et al 2017;Uy et al 2017) and videoconference (Mette et al 2016). Studies have demonstrated that communication technologies could be used to provide remote support, while maintaining the quality of the service (Melton et al 2017).…”

Systematic Review of Social Support on Psychological Symptoms and Self‐Management Behaviors Among Adults With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

“…Examining the types of support (e.g., informational, emotional, and tangible) is important since the type of support may influence self-management and psychological symptoms in different ways and therefore the development of interventions should match the needs reported. For instance, tangible and informational social support have a stronger association with medication adherence among individuals with chronic conditions than emotional social support (DiMatteo, 2004;Rico et al, 2017). Increased emotional support is associated with decreased levels of depression (Gariepy et al, 2016).…”