Description:
<jats:p> 1576 </jats:p><jats:p> Background: As cancer treatments improve, patients’ quality of life becomes even more important. In parallel, supportive care delivery is increasingly challenging, also due to resource pressures and COVID19. The effectiveness of digital and remote patient support tools as a complementary approach to improve patients’ quality of life is under evaluation. Fatigue is considered among the most prevalent and persistent side effects regardless of tumour type; also, despite ongoing research, there is no single approach established. We compare the effectiveness of different self-care interventions delivered by online platforms to cancer patients in several countries. Methods: Patients report side effects (including Fatigue) on the CareAcross online platforms and receive tailored support to help them improve their quality of life. The supportive material encompasses many topics, and patients may receive several combinations. For Fatigue, different topics (nutrition, hydration, rest etc) were analysed to evaluate effectiveness based on prospectively collected patient reported outcomes. Results: 1456 breast, lung, colorectal or prostate cancer patients from 8 countries (mainly UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy) reported Fatigue at least once. This analysis focuses on persistent fatigue: 1215 patients reported Fatigue more than once, receiving up to 7 permutations of topics (F1-F7; F4-7 consist of F1-3 combinations). All permutations include the “Physical Activity” topic (see Table). Overall, the “Hydration” topic stands out as consistently linked with the most effective material (all except F3). Comparative analysis between similar combinations shows that those with “Anemia warnings” and “Rest” tend to be more effective (F7>F6). Ambiguously, the “Physical activity before & after treatment”, “Relaxation exercises” and “Fatigue diary” topics contribute to effectiveness (F5>F1), but do not counterbalance absence of the previous 3 (F1>F3). Food-related topics have unclear impact, too: “Food types” is absent from the top combination (F2) where “Food timing” is used; however, that topic is linked with a slightly inferior combination (F7>F5). Conclusions: Fatigue is a complex, multifactorial challenge; digitally delivered interventions can lower its incidence. Hydration appears effective, but the nature of these interventions complicates their thorough evaluation. Randomised studies may enhance these findings and enable additional personalisation towards further quality of life improvements. [Table: see text] </jats:p>