NCT06187610

Digital Delivery of Patient Education: A Case Study of Symptom Self-Management During Cancer Treatment

Digital Intervention for Gastrointestinal (GI) Cancer Patients: A Case Study on Enhancing Symptom Self-Management During Treatment

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 110 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Tel Aviv University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The increasing shift from face-to-face to online patient-clinician encounters in the healthcare system requires patients to be more involved in their medical care. This raises the urgent need to evaluate the extent to which proactive patients' self-care can be supported, particularly by informed telemedicine digital channels. Despite this imperative, research offering evidence-based instructional design of digital education remains surprisingly scarce. Embracing the framework of science education, which highlights the functional role of different knowledge types in educational processes, the current study seeks to evaluate an educational approach aimed at supporting cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Cancer treatment serves as an exemplar health condition, demanding daily self-management from patients. The objectives of our research are as follows: (1) To delineate the types of knowledge required for effective symptom management, active participation in one's healthcare, and judicious decision-making regarding emergency room (ER) visits, with a focus on mechanistic knowledge pertaining to the rationale for treatment and procedural knowledge concerning the treatment regimen. (2) To appraise the impact of a digital learning environment in contrast to traditional methods on patients' acquisition of mechanistic and procedural knowledge. (3) To identify how patients engage with the digital patient education environment aiming to outline leaning patterns. The investigators hypothesize that implementing digital education will enhance patients' understanding of both the 'why' (mechanistic) and 'how' (procedural) aspects of their treatment. Importantly, the investigators expect that mechanistic knowledge will be more impactful than procedural knowledge, leading to better symptom management and patient involvement, and ultimately reducing unnecessary visits to the ER.

Conditions

• Digital Education Interventions
• Knowledge Types (Mechanistic Versus Procedural)

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Digital education	Patients assigned to the experimental group will learn about symptom self-management in a digital learning environment.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-10-01
• Primary completion: 2024-06-01
• Completion: 2024-11-01
• First posted: 2024-01-02
• Last updated: 2024-01-03

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Israel