Clinical Trial

Developing a smartphone tool to monitor symptoms and quality of life of dogs under chemotherapy

Disease of interest

Dogs with cancer receiving chemotherapy

 

Background

Increasingly in human medicine, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are being used as clinical practice tools to provide safer, more responsive and personalised oncology care leading to improved survival. Work by the University of Surrey published in the British Medical Journal shows that smartphone monitoring improves chemotherapy-related symptoms and quality of life and lessens patient anxiety. Our goal is to develop a similar tool in dogs.

Purpose of the study

Develop a questionnaire tool to help detect and alleviate side-effects of dogs undergoing chemotherapy, for a future digital platform.

Objectives

  • Rapid review of evidence and expert consensus to establish content and scope of a prototype CO-PROM
  • Development and mixed methods testing of a prototype CO-PROM with high content validity and sensitive to measure change
  • Preliminary specification of the user-centred requirements for digital platform and care package for future translation to digital (smartphone, web-based).

 

Eligibility criteria

Any dog diagnosed with cancer and treated with chemotherapy at AURA Veterinary

Study Protocol

  • Your dog will receive his chemotherapy treatments, as normally planned by his oncologist
  • You will be asked to complete a brief daily online questionnaire about his symptoms
  • A sub-sample of owners will be invited to take part in an online interview to provide feedback on the questionnaire and gather views about digital monitoring
  • This study has been reviewed and received approval from the University of Surrey Research and Ethics Committee

How will my participation affect my dogs treatment?

  • There will be no changes to your pet’s treatment due to participation in this study.
  • The results of the study will not be released in time to benefit your pet, but may benefit other pets in the future.

 

Owners responsibilties

  • You will be asked to complete a short online questionnaire once a day for a maximum of 21 days. If your dog has no symptoms that day, it will take less than 1-minute to complete.
  • You may be invited to part in an online interview to give us feedback on the questionnaire.

Financial support

  • This project has been awarded a grant which covers all costs related to the study
  • The standard chemotherapy treatments will be at the charge of the owner
  • The owner will receive a £50 gift voucher

Do you have any questions?

For questions regarding the clinical trial, please email hello@auravet.com with the subject “CO-PROM study”.

Clinical trial overview

Species or breeds of interest

Dogs

Closing date

May 31, 2023

Clinical trial documents

Clinical trial links