A systematic review of effectiveness of interventions applicable to radiotherapy that are administered to improve patient comfort, increase patient compliance, and reduce patient distress or anxiety

S. Goldsworthy, S. Palmer, J.M. Latour, H. McNair, M. Cramp

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)
173 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this review was to search existing literature to identify comfort interventions that can be used to assist an adult patient to undergo complex radiotherapy requiring positional stability for periods greater than 10 min. The objectives of this review were to; 1) identify comfort interventions used for clinical procedures that involve sustained inactivity similar to radiotherapy; 2) define characteristics of comfort interventions for future practice; and 3) determine the effectiveness of identified comfort interventions. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and meta-analyses statement and the Template-for-Intervention-Description-and Replication guide were used. Key findings: The literature search was performed using PICO criteria with five databases (AMED, CINAHL EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO) identifying 5269 titles. After screening, 46 randomised controlled trials met the inclusion criteria. Thirteen interventions were reported and were grouped into four categories: Audio–visual, Psychological, Physical, and Other interventions (education/information and aromatherapy). The majority of aromatherapy, one audio–visual and one educational intervention were judged to be clinically significant for improving patient comfort based on anxiety outcome measures (effect size ≥ 0.4, mean change is greater than the Minimal-Important-Difference and low-risk-of-bias). Medium to large effect sizes were reported in many interventions where differences did not exceed the Minimal-Important-Difference for the measure. These interventions were deemed worthy of further investigation. Conclusion: Several interventions were identified that may improve comfort during radiotherapy assisting patients to sustain and endure the same position over time. This is crucial for the continual growth of complex radiotherapy requiring a need for comfort to ensure stability for targeted treatment. Implications for practice: Further investigation of comfort interventions is warranted, including tailoring interventions to patient choice and determining if multiple interventions can be used concurrently to improve effectiveness.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)314-324
Number of pages11
JournalRadiography
Volume26
Issue number4
Early online date31 Mar 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Radiography. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Radiography 26:4 (2020) DOI: 10.1016/j.radi.2020.03.002

© 2020, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Keywords

  • Clinical significance
  • Comfort interventions
  • Radiotherapy
  • Randomised controlled trial
  • Systematic review

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging

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