Patient-centered Self-administered Acupressure for Fatigue Management in Chinese Advanced Cancer Patients

Summary

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of a patient-centered self-administered acupressure intervention on fatigue, sleep quality, pain, fatigue-sleep disturbance-pain symptom cluster severity, psychological distress, and health-related quality of life among Chinese advanced cancer patients.

HYPOTHESIS TO BE TESTED: Upon intervention completion, the intervention group will exhibit lower levels of fatigue, pain, fatigue-sleep disturbance-pain symptom cluster severity, and psychological distress and higher levels of sleep quality and health-related quality of life than the wait-list control group.

DESIGN and SUBJECTS: A randomized wait-list controlled trial with intervention and wait-list control groups. A total of 30 Chinese advanced cancer patients who screen positive for moderate/severe fatigue with symptoms of insomnia and/or pain will be recruited.

STUDY INSTRUMENTS: Chinese versions of the Brief Fatigue Inventory, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Brief Pain Inventory, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - General, and a demographic questionnaire.

INTERVENTION: A 4-week patient-centered self-administered acupressure intervention comprising 17.5 hours of individual training and self-practice.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary: fatigue. Secondary: sleep quality, pain, fatigue-sleep disturbance-pain symptom cluster severity, psychological distress, health-related quality of life, actigraphy.

DATA ANALYSIS: Linear mixed-effects models to assess between-group differences in outcome measures post-intervention and changes between data collection points, as well as whether the between-group differences vary across time.

EXPECTED RESULTS: The proposed patient-centered self-administered acupressure intervention is useful for alleviating the fatigue and related symptoms experienced by Chinese advanced cancer patients.

Conditions

• Advanced Cancer
• Acupressure

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Self-administered acupressure

Two 2-hour one-on-one training sessions in patient-centered self-administered acupressure will be provided by trainers in the first week (4 hours) in the patient's home or at the university, depending on his/her preference. From the second to fourth weeks of the intervention, participants will engage in 15 minutes of self-administered acupressure twice a day (for a total of 10.5 hours over the 3 weeks). They will log the frequency of self-practice in a diary and be encouraged to undertake self-practice beyond the 4-week intervention. At weeks 2, 3, and 4, a 1-hour follow-up visit will be conducted by the same team of trainers to reinforce learning and self-practice (for a total of 3 hours over the 3 weeks).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong

  collaborator OTHER

• The University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Shuk Ting Cheung, PhD · The University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

99 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-08-07

Primary Completion

2019-05-31

Completion

2019-05-31

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations