A Digital Art Activity to Enhance Self-Disclosure and the Detection of Psycho-social Distress in Adult Cancer Patients

August 19, 2026 updated by: M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
To look at how a digital art activity may help cancer patients improve their ability to express their distress, symptoms, and lived experience.

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Primary objective:

  • To evaluate how engaging in a digital art activity might potentially cause changes in symptom reporting, based on pre/post self-reporting on the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) at time T3.

Secondary objectives:

  • To evaluate the changes in symptom reporting, based on pre/post self-reporting on ESAS at different times of the study (T1, T2).
  • To evaluate how a specific creative art making activity (T3), compared to an active control condition (T2; music listening) may or may not impact reporting ESAS.
  • To monitor potential changes in distress disclosure, based on the self-report scoring on the Distress Disclosure Index score at T0, T2 and T3.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

74

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Texas
      • Houston, Texas, United States, 77030
        • MD Anderson Cancer Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sampling Method

Probability Sample

Study Population

M D Anderson Cancer Center

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  1. Age equal or greater than 18 years
  2. Patients who are admitted in the hospital and have received a cancer diagnosis.
  3. Suffering from solid cancer or hematological malignancy and receiving active treatment for their cancer.
  4. Voluntary written consent.
  5. Fluent in English or Spanish.

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Not being able to use a digital tablet
  2. Being speech impaired or vision impaired
  3. Patients who are cognitively impaired and unable to read or consent for the study
  4. Pregnant women

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Intervention / Treatment
Digital Art Activity

Visit 1, Participants will be asked to complete a symptom questionnaire and then you will interact with the digital art tool. Participants will first complete a short breathing exercise, and then Participants will interact with the digital art tool. The digital tool combines a digital canvas with a collage activity. Participants will be asked to choose a background and then answer questions about your general well-being and your physical and emotional symptoms as they relate to cancer and cancer treatment.

Visit 2, Participants will be asked to fill out the symptom questionnaire, complete another activity such as listening to meditative music for 10 minutes, and then fill out the symptom questionnaire again.

Visit 3, Participants will fill out the symptom questionnaire and engage in the digital art activity again. Participants will then be asked to fill out 3 other questionnaires about your feelings of distress.
Behavioral: Digital Art Activity
  • complete a symptom questionnaire
  • complete another activity such as listening to meditative music for 10 minutes
  • fill out the symptom questionnaire and engage in the digital art activity again

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
The Edmonton Symptom Assessment System, (ESAS) questionnaires
Time Frame: through study completion; an average 1 year.
Score Scale (0-10) 0 No symptom-10 Worst possible
through study completion; an average 1 year.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Carlos Roldan, MD, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

November 2, 2023

Primary Completion (Estimated)

August 31, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

August 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 7, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 7, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

November 13, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 20, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 19, 2026

Last Verified

August 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2023-0328
  • NCI-2023-09557 (Other Identifier: NCI-CTRP Clinical Trials Registry)

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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