A symptom management system was developed and implemented on personal digital
assistants (PDAs) for use by cancer outpatients in their daily management of
chemotherapy symptoms. The system allowed patients to record their symptoms at
home and send these data to their cancer centre. Patients could view
personalized self-care advice and more general medical information. In addition,
cancer care nurses were alerted about significantly high symptom scores and
could contact the patient by phone. The system was distributed to a group of
patients during two of their chemotherapy cycles. Patient interaction with the
system was logged, and both patients and cancer nurses were surveyed via
questionnaires and interviews in order to assess expectations of and attitudes
towards the technology. Comparison was made of the quantitative and qualitative
results so obtained. Implications for computer-assisted symptom management and
the method of evaluation of such systems are considered.