TITLE: Pain And Mood Assessment in Cancer Patients In A Tertiary Care Hospital
AUTHORS: Pradyuman  Singh Rajput, Dhruv Patel, Neel Modi, Aakash Jirafe, Dr Steffi John, PharmD

[DESCRIPTION]
Cancer Patients often suffer from mixed aetiologies of pain referred to as cancer pain.
The study was conducted to assess various cause of pain with it's effect upon the mood of the patient.
Pain was measured quantitatively in the study using Visual Analogue Scale(VAS) for Pain and qualitatively using Edmonton Classification System for Cancer Pain (ECS-CP). While Mood for the patients were quantitatively assessed using Visual Analog Mood Scales (VAMS) which incorporates eight various moods generally observed in the population. The study focused upon the occurrence of pain in the cancer population while measuring the mood in the patients and finding correlation between both outcomes.

[BEFORE_START]
One must know in depth about the scales used in the study:
1) VAS Pain
2) ECS-CP
3) VAMS

The investigator should also know about the patient's condition using Medical Records of the patient for effective  results and responses.

[GUIDELINES]
The Protocol was used upon the permission and NOC from the site of study i.e. tertiary care hospital. 
Ethical guidelines were maintained and ethics approval from Institutional Ethics Committee was received. (Approval No. SDPC/IEC-02/01/2021) 
Patient Privacy was maintained and carried out under the observation of hospital clinical pharmacist and an experienced radio-oncologist.

Procedure for VAS Pain:
1) Approaching the patient at suitable time.
2) Greeting the Patient and asking for the language of communication preferred.
3) Explaining the objectives and purpose of the study
4) Upon counselling, assessing the severity of pain orally and visually using the scale.
5) Reaching a concluding answer and marking the response in the data collection form.

Procedure for ECS-CP
1) Approaching patient documents for an overview of the patients condition.
2) With consultation of the attending physician, marking the responses on five parameters of the scale.

Procedure for VAMS
1) Mood is generally assessed upon conclusive results of the caretaker and  the patient.
2) Each mood behaviour is openly discussed with both the stakeholders and the response is marked.



[STEPS]
SECTION: PRIOR REQUIREMENTS
1. Equipping Investigator with Pre-Requisite counselling with the patient.
SECTION: PRIOR REQUIREMENTS
2. Investigator should know about the patient using Medication Records and attending nurse.
SECTION: Data Collection
3. Collecting Demographics and Patient Vitals from Patient file.
SECTION: Data Collection
4. Description of Cancer Diagnostics, Mode of treatment and pain management used

SECTION: Data Collection
5. VAS Pain Assessment
SECTION: Data Collection
6. Assessing Site, Onset and Duration of Pain with Comorbidities, exacerbating factors and relieving factors for pain.
SECTION: Data Collection
7. ECS-CP Assessment
SECTION: Data Collection
8. VMAS Assessment
SECTION: Data Entry
9. Collecting the data on a structured dataset in SPSS
SECTION: Data Entry
10. Finishing Collection based upon the effective Sample Size.
SECTION: Data Analysis &amp; Interpretation
11. Performing Descriptive Statistical Tests using SPSS


SECTION: Data Analysis &amp; Interpretation
12. Interpretation of Data