Computer Based Assessment and Treatment

The traditional way of symptom assessment is by the paper-and-pen method, which suffers from several limitations. The assessment items are not individually adjusted to each patient and his/her subjective symptoms, the collected data is rarely used in clinical practice, and decision-support for the physician is not possible. Although the body of evidence is accumulating regarding the benefits of computerised symptom assessment in cancer patients, there is still insufficient knowledge of the impact of computerised assessment tools on the management of cancer pain and other cancer related symptoms. The COMBAT study aims to investigate if a computer based assessment of cancer related symptoms, and a computerized decision support can improve treatment of pain and other symptoms in cancer patients. This is an open, comparative study with a sequential design with two consecutive study periods, the non-intervention period and the intervention period. The computer-based clinical decision support system will utilize the following data to generate one or several treatment options: 1. Data from self assessment of cancer related symptoms 2. Data from relevant variables reported by the physician 3. Revisited guidelines on treatment of cancer pain