About this trial
Advanced cancer patients often experience significant physical and emotional symptoms, which can lead to frequent hospital visits and reduced quality of life. Although palliative care can help manage these symptoms and improve well-being, it is often introduced too late.
A proactive symptom monitoring model, SPARKLE-2 aims to identify patients who need palliative care earlier by regularly checking their symptoms using a simple questionnaire. Patients with concerned symptoms will receive timely support from the palliative care team, with the goal of improving their quality of life, reducing unnecessary hospital admissions, and helping more patients receive care in the community rather than in hospital. In the earlier SPARKLE-1 study, it showed the improvement of patients' physical wellbeing. SPARKLE-2 seeks to test the effectiveness among advanced cancer patients with unplanned hospital visits while simultaneously collecting data on real-world implementation.
Eligibility criteria
Qualifiers
21 years old or older
Diagnosed of advanced cancer diagnosis, defined as metastatic or recurrent/ progressive Stage III/IV solid tumour
Has an unplanned hospital admission and expected to be discharged home
Able to speak English or Mandarin Chinese or Malay
Disqualifiers
Assessed by the treating physician as unable to complete study procedures
Unable to complete patient-reported outcome measures
Healthcare professionals that are not providing care for cancer patients.
Unable to complete interviews
Trial design
Treatments tested in this trial
- SPARKLE-2