Structured Post-Operative Pain and Distress Treatment Intervention for Patients Undergoing Surgery for Intra-Abdominal Malignancies
Structured Post-Operative Pain and Distress Treatment Intervention for Patients Undergoing Surgery for Intra-Abdominal Malignancies
The purpose of this study is to determine if different video based coping strategies can help patients undergoing surgery for cancer can improve patients pain and distress after surgery for their cancer.
The main questions this study aims to answer are:
Researchers will compare mindfulness-based coping strategies (e.g., guided meditation, expressive writing, etc.) with non-mindfulness coping strategies (e.g., support from social workers and the wellness center, health education, etc.) to understand how these can help in post-surgery recovery, pain management, and distress.
Participants will:
We propose to conduct a quality improvement project to determine the impact of different types of psychosocial support for patients undergoing surgery for intrabdominal malignancies.
This project will consist of a program evaluation/quality improvement study of existing pain and psychosocial management programs within the University of Utah Hospital System, which currently employs Study staff to provide mindfulness and non-mindfulness interventions for patients preparing for surgery and recovering from surgery. We wish to evaluate the differential impact of mindfulness interventions (e.g., guided meditation, expressive writing, etc.) and non-mindfulness interventions (. g., cognitive-behaviorally based psychoeducation, health education, grounding/earthing, and sham grounding/earthing, etc., support via social work and the wellness center, etc.) by randomly assigning patients to one of these approaches.
Objectives:
Aim 1 To assess the feasibility and acceptability of an application-based mindfulness or expressive writing intervention designed to address post-operative pain and distress, such as anxiety or depression, for patients undergoing surgery for intrabdominal malignancies.
Hypotheses: Greater than 50% of patients assigned to a mindfulness intervention, either guided meditation or expressive writing, will engage with at least one intervention, and over 30% of patients will engage with all four interventions.
Aim 2 To assess the differential effects of mindfulness vs. non-mindfulness therapeutic approaches on pain, distress, patient health engagement, and pain medication usage for patients preparing for/recovering from surgery for intraabdominal malignancies and identify the most sensitive instruments to detect this change in this population.
Hypotheses: Mindfulness-based therapeutic approaches, including guided meditation and expressive writing, will decrease pain, distress, and pain medicine usage and increase patient health engagement significantly more than standard non-mindfulness-based therapeutic approaches. We predict narcotic requirements during the post-operative period, and patient-reported pain scores will be the most sensitive.
Inclusion Criteria:
Exclusion Criteria: