Monitoring Patient-Reported Outcomes in Self-management of Postsurgical Symptoms in Oncology: A Scoping Review.

Abstract

Background: Surgery is used widely for cancer treatment, and in most types, after discharge, patients usually report multiple symptoms, which, if not controlled, can put postoperative recovery at risk. Understanding which patient-reported outcomes (PROs) should be monitored could have a significant impact on reducing the symptom burden associated with cancer and its treatment by playing a pivotal role in developing symptom self-management plans and designing tailored approaches to optimize patients' symptom self-management behaviors.

Objective: To map the PROs used for patients' postsurgical symptom self-management after hospital discharge following cancer surgery.

Interventions/methods: Our scoping review process was guided by the steps for conducting scoping reviews recommended by the Joanna Briggs Institute.

Results: The search identified 97 potentially relevant studies, with 27 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. The most frequently assessed and monitored PROs were problems with surgical wounds, more general physical symptoms, psychological functioning outcomes, and quality of life.

Conclusions: Our results showed an overall uniformity among the PROs selected to be monitored in surgical cancer patients after hospital discharge. Monitoring through electronic platforms is widely used and seems useful to self-manage symptoms and optimize the recovery of cancer patients after discharge following surgery.

Implications for practice: This study provides knowledge about PROs that can be applied in oncologic patients after surgery to self-report their symptoms following discharge.