FAST-Diary v1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A Flexible Activity and SympTom Diary for Patients with Chronic Pain: a feasibility study.
IRAS ID
174930
Contact name
Michael Lee
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Research Summary
Healthcare providers rely on patients' reports of pain and other symptoms to guide treatment and management. These symptoms are usually reported during clinic consultations, which are infrequent. Hence, the variation in symptoms throughout the course of everyday activities is often missed. Electronic diaries can be a useful way of recording symptoms, but existing software has not been developed in consultation with patients and their clinicians. Furthermore, data can often only be entered using a single type of device, for example a smartphone, which not all patients either have access to or would be capable of using. FAST-diary seeks to overcome these limitations by allowing patients to design their own simple scales for rating pain and other symptoms that are important to them, for example using number-based, word-based or picture-based scales based on individual preference. Patients may choose to use a variety of devices, including the land-line telephone, text-messaging, tablet computers, smart-phones and other computers to enter data into their diaries. In addition, FAST-diary would allow input from wearable devices (body sensors), e.g. accelerometers which measure physical movement. This can help assess the effects that sleep and activity have on symptoms. In addition, ECG and EEG recordings (heart traces and brain activity traces recorded by non-invasive devices which patients can wear during normal activities) can be used to provide information about heart and brain function relevant to pain. Patients could have direct access to their e-diaries from the Internet, and the diaries could also be shared with different healthcare providers. FAST-diary is being developed in partnership with patients, caregivers, clinicians and researchers to ensure its usefulness for the management of chronic pain.
Summary of Results
Paper or electronic diaries are used in clinical trials of drugs used for pain relief to help researchers decide whether the drug is effective. Whilst it would be desirable to monitor the effectiveness of the medications like morphine in NHS patients, we lack a cost-effective non-commercial platform where data can be secured housed. Importantly, chronic pain is accompanied by varying symptoms, including depression, anxiety and sleeplessness and a diary flexible enough to be customised for the patient and clinician are required. In research, we worked with patients in focus group, the local pain clinic and app development to create FAST (Flexible Activity and Symptom Tracker) to help with ascertaining outcomes of diagnostic injections in the NHS, as well as to facilitate clinical research locally. FAST is now part of the Addenbrookes NHS Pain Service and has facilitated experimental drug trial research as well.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EE/0309
Date of REC Opinion
9 Nov 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion