Development of a Novel Massage Therapy Outcome Measure for Children and Young Adults Receiving Hematopoietic Cell Transplant.

BACKGROUND

Children receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) often experience an unfortunate sequalae of negative effects including pain, deconditioning, and anxiety. Massage therapy (MT) has demonstrated effective non-pharmacological management of fatigue, pain, and anxiety in patients undergoing cancer treatment. Existing studies have been limited by the lack of available MT-specific outcome measures to track responses to interventions.

PURPOSE

This study aimed to describe the creation of a novel MT-specific outcome measure to be utilized in the pediatric acute-care setting and establish construct validity for this measure to assess clinical effectiveness of MT interventions.

SETTING

An oncology ward at a large pediatric tertiary medical center in the United States.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 58 children and young adults undergoing HCT.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Retrospective Cohort Study.

INTERVENTION

A panel of massage therapists created a novel outcome measure, OMPREP, for use in MT sessions and performed a literature review to ensure face validity of the tool. This outcome measure was administered to patients and data were collected retrospectively to assess construct validity.

RESULTS

A total of 1,333 MT sessions were completed (80.7% completion rate) with the novel OMPREP outcome measure utilized on 100% of visits. Mean engagement (<.001), response (<.001), and pain (<.001) scores were all significantly greater at evaluation and discharge compared to the lowest observed scores post-HCT.

CONCLUSION

The novel MT-specific outcome measure, OMPREP, was feasible and demonstrated construct validity when implemented in a pediatric acute-care setting by massage therapists. This new tool may offer a quantitative measure of MT-interventions and assist in tracking patient outcomes.