A Digital Art Activity to Enhance Self-Disclosure and the Detection of Psycho-social Distress in Adult Cancer Patients

A Digital Art Activity to Enhance Self-Disclosure and the Detection of Psycho-social Distress in Adult Cancer Patients

To look at how a digital art activity may help cancer patients improve their ability to express their distress, symptoms, and lived experience.

Primary objective:

• To evaluate how engaging in a digital art activity might potentially cause changes in symptom reporting, based on pre/post self-reporting on the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) at time T3.

Secondary objectives:

• To evaluate the changes in symptom reporting, based on pre/post self-reporting on ESAS at different times of the study (T1, T2).
• To evaluate how a specific creative art making activity (T3), compared to an active control condition (T2; music listening) may or may not impact reporting ESAS.
• To monitor potential changes in distress disclosure, based on the self-report scoring on the Distress Disclosure Index score at T0, T2 and T3.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Age equal or greater than 18 years
2. Patients who are admitted in the hospital and have received a cancer diagnosis.
3. Suffering from solid cancer or hematological malignancy and receiving active treatment for their cancer.
4. Voluntary written consent.
5. Fluent in English or Spanish.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Not being able to use a digital tablet
2. Being speech impaired or vision impaired
3. Patients who are cognitively impaired and unable to read or consent for the study
4. Pregnant women