Patients and Caregivers Rate the PAINReportIt Wireless Internet-Enabled Tablet as a Method for Reporting Pain During End-of-Life Cancer Care

Abstract

Background In several studies, investigators have successfully used an internet-enabled PAINReportIt tablet to allow patients to report their pain to clinicians in real-time, but it is unknown how acceptable this technology is to patients and caregivers when used in their homes. Objective The aims of this study were to examine computer use acceptability scores of patients with end-stage cancer in hospice and their caregivers and to compare the scores for differences by age, gender, race, and computer use experience. Intervention/Methods Immediately after using the tablet, 234 hospice patients and 231 caregivers independently completed the Computer Acceptability Scale (maximum scores of 14 for patients and 9 for caregivers). Results The mean (SD) Computer Acceptability score was 12.2 (1.9) for patients and 8.5 (0.9) for caregivers. Computer Acceptability scores were significantly associated with age and with previous computer use for both patients and caregivers. Conclusions This technology was highly acceptable to patients and caregivers for reporting pain in real time to their hospice nurses. Implications for Practice Findings provide encouraging results that are worthy of serious consideration for patients who are in end stages of illness, including older persons and those with minimal computer experience. Increasing availability of technology can provide innovative methods for improving care provided to patients facing significant cancer-related pain even at the end of life.

Feasibility, acceptability and needs in telemedicine for palliative care

“…In the 27 reports, the 3 most common designs were singlearm intervention studies (9; 33%) [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25], reviews (6; 22.2%) [3,[26][27][28][29][30], and qualitative studies (4; 14.8%) [31][32][33][34]. The remainder were cohort, cross-sectional studies or reports / expert opinions [35][36][37][38][39][40][41], with only one randomised controlled study [42].…”

“…The most common providers were physicians alone (33%) [17-20, 27, 33, 34, 37, 39] and the core palliative care team (physician and nurse) (40%) [21, 23-25, 28-31, 36, 38, 42]. Four reports (15%) [3,26,35,40] described multiple/mixed providers, and only one study (4%) [22] involved nursing providers exclusively.…”

Inclusion of Caregivers in Veterans’ Care: A Critical Literature Review

“…However, the busy health care provider may find it difficult to fit assessments of caregiver capability into the workflow. It may be necessary to enact patient reported outcomes approaches that use tablet technology or another staff member avoiding the need for the health care provider to be present in real time, every time (Schoppee et al, 2019).…”

Understanding the Experience of Cancer Pain From the Perspective of Patients and Family Caregivers to Inform Design of an In-Home Smart Health System: Multimethod Approach

“…This research contributes to a more complete understanding of the experience of cancer pain in the home context and adds an important dimension of considering the caregiver’s perspective. It also fills an important gap in the evidence-based design of smart health monitoring and intervention systems to provide symptom support for patients and caregivers coping with advanced cancer, a population with often significant, and unmet, symptom management needs [ 35 , 49 , 50 ]. Our overall sample, although equally split between males and females, had a disproportionate number of female caregivers and, although not racially or ethnically diverse, represents a geographically underserved sample, as the majority of patients were from rural areas of Central Virginia (consistent with the general demographics of the cancer center recruitment study site).…”