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Grant Abstract Automated Telephone Monitoring for Symptom
Management Supplement
Automated Telephone Monitoring for Symptom ManagementSupplementThe proposed
supplement seeks to build on existing work by this team and by other
researchers to measure the impact of symptoms among cancer patients
undergoing chemotherapy. Timely assessment and management of symptoms
is key to successful treatment, maintaining physical and social functioning,
and to reducing emotional distress of the patients. Before symptoms
can be managed effectively, it is necessary to have reliable and valid
instruments for their measurement. The current grant (R01 CA030724-01)
proposed testing the effect of a behavioral intervention using a linear
combination of reported severity for seven core symptoms. The symptoms
were selected based on their prevalence in past research conducted by
this team. In implementing this research, we have extended our list
to include the original 15 symptoms that have been used in our past
work. The index of symptom severity used in the original grant is the
sum of reported severities of 7 core symptoms, with zero used to take
into account the absence of a symptom. In the past research completed
by the investigator, the raw index equal to the sum of severities of
15 symptoms was also used.In the proposed research, we will employ a
number of data sets from randomized clinical trials administered to
patients with solid tumors who are undergoing chemotherapy, including
data from the two trials currently being completed, R01 CA030724 and
R01 CA79280. An optimized symptom severity index will be developed using
item response theory approach. We evaluate the reliability and stability
of this measure across different samples of cancer patients undergoing
chemotherapy. By comparing optimized index of symptom severity to the
existing raw indices, this work will evaluate the relative benefits
of fewer numbers of symptoms in the construction and the subsequent
testing of this measure across the samples. The effect of using different
symptom severity indices on findings related to testing the impact of
a cognitive-behavioral intervention on symptom severity, which is the
common primary outcome to be tested in these trials.
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