Remote monitoring of patient recovery following lung cancer surgery: a messenger application approach

BACKGROUND: Repeated assessment of patient recovery after discharge is challenging. This study used a popular messenger application to remotely collect patient self-reported symptoms and their severity so as to monitor patient recovery and identify the factors affecting the recovery of symptoms following lung cancer surgery. METHODS: This prospective observational study was conducted at a single tertiary lung cancer center in China between November 2018 and June 2019. Participants received demonstration videos and repeated symptom surveys regarding pain and cough severity (assessed using numeric rating scores of 0–10 for pain and 0–6 for cough) at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 12 weeks after discharge via a smartphone program bound to the WeChat application. Patients who responded to at least 3 of the 5 post-discharge surveys were included in this study. The data were analyzed to investigate the symptom recovery and its related factors. RESULTS: Of the 826 patients enrolled, 589 (71.3%) responded to at least three surveys. The average pain score reduced from 4.1±2.5 at 2 weeks to 2.2±2.0 at 12 weeks (P<0.001). Factors associated with higher pain severity included the female gender, age over 60 years, thoracotomy, longer operation time (>90 minutes), and prolonged chest tube drainage (>7 days). The average cough score decreased from 2.34±1.30 at 2 weeks to 1.93±1.26 at 12 weeks (P<0.001). Being female and a prolonged operation time (>90 min) were related to increased cough severity. Sublobar resection and limited lymphadenectomy may contribute to lower cough severity post-surgery. CONCLUSIONS: The messenger application-based remote monitoring successfully collected post-discharge symptom information and identified factors associated with recovery following lung surgery.