Validation of canine oncology-proxy reported outcome measure to support symptom management and quality of life in dogs undergoing chemotherapy
Start date
July 2024End date
June 2026Overview
Objectives are to test and refine the CO-PROM through psychometric validation adhering to gold-standards for the development of outcome measures including:
- Validation of the CO-PROM at scale
- To assess the side-effect severity and quality of life in companion dogs using the CO-PROM
- To explore the associations between human (demographic, subjective wellbeing) and companion dog associated factors (treatment protocols, clinical characteristics) and outcomes of the CO-PROM
- Deploy prototype CO-PROM enabling daily symptom assessment and understand clients' (i.e., family member and primary caregiver) views on how they would want the data provided by the CO-PROM to be used (e.g. views on the different data visualizations for presenting symptom/quality of life [QoL] data) to inform development of a future digital platform.In this study, the team will test the questionnaire to ensure it accurately measures side effects and quality of life, provides consistent results and is safe without missing any essential clinical symptoms. This involves real-world testing with feedback from 100 families with dogs undergoing chemotherapy. If successful, this new assessment tool could help improve overall dog health during chemotherapy and provide a better understanding of how symptoms change over time to enhance patient care.
See our previous project: Advancing Canine Treatment In Oncology (ACTION): development of a Canine Oncology Proxy-Reported Outcome Measure (CO-PROM) for routine remote symptom-monitoring
Funding amount
$128,000
Funder
Team
Dr Jenny Harris
Senior Lecturer in Cancer Care and Health Statistics
Biography
Jenny is a Senior Lecturer in Cancer Care and Health Statistics the School of Health Sciences at the University of Surrey. Her on-going programme of work focuses on optimising health care delivery and outcomes based on data-driven approaches often informed by psychological and behavioural insights.
Jenny has a particular interest in psychosocial care for people living with cancer and using data driven insights to improve multidisciplinary teamworking and quality of care, patient experience and clinical outcomes.
Her recent work has been focused on the intersection of cancer and maternity care, and exploring how insights from cancer health services research might be adapted and implemented for other conditions or areas of care, notably maternity and obstetric care (TEAM-QI), peripheral artery disease and veterinary medicine.
Methodological interests include predictive risk modelling incorporating questionnaires, surveys and questionnaire design and validation, mixed-methods evaluations of complex interventions (quasi-experimental designs, feasibility studies, RCTs) and real-world implementation of electronic Patient Reported Outcome and Experience Measures. Jenny is passionate about involving patients and the public in research including studies using advanced statistical methods.
Professor Nick Bacon
Professor of Surgical Oncology, University of Surrey; Surgical Oncology and Soft Tissue Surgery, Aura Veterinary
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Simon Hodgkinson (front of house, AURA), Quentin Fournier (medical oncology clinician, AURA), Zoe Clothier (research fellow, School of Health Sciences, UoS), Sarah Holliday (senior medical oncology nurse, AURA, kneeling), Todd (a chemotherapy patient), Jenny Harris (senior lecturer in cancer care and health statistics, School of Health Sciences, UoS), Carl Rudkin (medical oncology nurse, AURA), Nick Bacon (clinical director, AURA) and Gordon Taylor (commercial director, AURA).
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Research groups and centres
Our research is supported by research groups and centres of excellence.