Leveraging Mobile Health Technology and Multidisciplinary Methodology to Optimize Self-Management Education for Advanced Cancer Pain: Development of STAMP

Abstract

Objective. Pain continues to be a primary and challenging symptom of cancer. We sought to use mobile health (mHealth) technology to tailor psycho-education to better meet patients’ needs. Methods: Using the Agile and mHealth Development and Evaluation Frameworks, a multidisciplinary team of clinician researchers, patients, and software and design specialists followed a four-phase iterative process to develop multi-media cancer pain education within a patient-facing smartphone application. Results: The resulting application pairs comprehensive cancer pain education spanning pharmacologic and behavioral support with medication hosting and symptom surveys. MHealth enables creative, interactive educational approaches utilizing written text, graphics, animated videos, quizzes, audio-recordings, and motivational messages. Computable algorithms were used to tailor content to patients’ symptom surveys. Cancer patients found the materials to be useful. Conclusion: By bridging technology and research methodology, we incorporated theory, evidence, and patient feedback to create a tailored and scalable educational intervention to support cancer pain self-management.