Abstract
Aim: To determine the effectiveness of a bespoke digital intervention to support cancer survivors.
Design: Pragmatic parallel open randomised trial.
Setting: UK general practices.
Methods: People having finished primary treatment (<= 10 years previously) for colo-rectal, breast or prostate cancers, with European-Organization-for-Research-and-Treatment-of-Cancer QLQ-C30 score <85, were randomised by online software to: 1) detailed ‘generic’ digital NHS support (‘LiveWell’;n=906), 2) a bespoke complex digital intervention (‘Renewed’;n=903) addressing symptom management, physical activity, diet, weight loss, distress, or 3) ‘Renewed-with-support’ (n=903): ‘Renewed’ with additional brief email and telephone support.
Results: Mixed linear regression provided estimates of the differences between each intervention group and generic advice: at 6 months (primary time point: n’s respectively 806;749;705) all groups improved, with no significant between-group differences for EORTC QLQ-C30, but global health improved more in both intervention groups. By 12 months there were: small improvements in EORTC QLQ-C30 for Renewed-with-support (versus generic advice: 1.42, 95% CIs 0.33-2.51); both groups improved global health (12 months: renewed: 3.06, 1.39-4.74; renewed-with-support: 2.78, 1.08-4.48), dyspnoea, constipation, and enablement, and lower NHS costs (generic advice £265: in comparison respectively £141 (153-128) and £77 (90-65) lower); and for Renewed-with-support improvement in several other symptom subscales. No harms were identified.
Conclusion: Cancer survivors quality of life improved with detailed generic online support. Robustly developed bespoke digital support provides limited additional short term benefit, but additional longer term improvement in global health
enablement and symptom management, with substantially lower NHS costs.
Original language | English |
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Article number | BJGP.2023.0262 |
Pages (from-to) | (In-Press) |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | British Journal of General Practice |
Volume | (In-Press) |
Early online date | 20 Dec 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 20 Dec 2023 |
Bibliographical note
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Funder
This article presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research programme (grant ref No RP-PG-0514-20001). LY is an NIHR Senior Investigator and her research programme is partly supported by NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC)-West and NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) for Behavioural Science and Evaluation. The Renewed intervention was developed using LifeGuide software, which is partly supported by the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).Keywords
- cancer survivors
- global health
- resource use