Digital Intervention for Symptom Management in Cancer and Opioid Sparing Using Virtual Reality (DISCOVR) Study

Summary

Patients living with cancer commonly have chronic pain due to the disease or to cancer treatments. Virtual reality, a new technology that immerses the user in pleasant, diverting, and exciting virtual environments, may lower chronic cancer pain to improve quality of life and complement need for pain medications like opioids. The investigators aim to learn from patients about the experience of cancer pain, develop a virtual reality prototype specific to cancer pain management, and test the feasibility and acceptability of this technology to improve the cancer pain experience.

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

* age ≥18 years old
* living with active cancer diagnosis (any solid tumor type)
* report chronic cancer pain (≥3 months) with baseline severity moderate-severe (i.e., self-report pain score (SRPS) ≥4/10, where 0=no pain, 10=worst pain)
* prescribed chronic opioid therapies (may be long-acting formulations, short-acting formulations, or both)

Exclusion Criteria:

* history of intractable nausea/vomiting, motion sickness, seizures/epilepsy, and/or cranial structure abnormalities preventing VR headset use
* moderate-severe pain of non-cancer etiology (e.g., chronic lumbago)
* enrolled in another pain study
* unable to complete surveys in English or Spanish.

Conditions1

Locations1 site

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