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 (p<.001), response (p<.001), and pain (p<.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.