Clinical trial NCT05922553: Using Mukbang to Improve Appetite, Nutritional Status and Quality of Life in Children With Cancer
Official title: The Effectiveness of Mukbang in Helping Children With Cancer Hospitalized for Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy to Improve Appetite, Nutritional Status and Quality of Life: A Randomized Control Trial
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Children With Cancer
Keywords: Childhood Cancer
Mukbang
Appetite
Nutritional Status
Quality of Life
Lead sponsor: Sun Yat-sen University
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2023-06-28
Enrollment: 114
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 6
Maximum age (years): 18
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Brief summary: This study aims to use a three arms randomized clinical trial study to evaluate the effectiveness of the effective constituent of Mukbang in helping children with cancer hospitalized for radiotherapy and chemotherapy to improve their appetite, nutritional status and quality of life.

Detailed description: Cancer has a high incidence among children and adolescents worldwide. In October 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) released an overview of the Global Action on Childhood Cancer which showed that more than 400,000 children under the age of 19 were diagnosed with cancer worldwide every year. With the development and progress of diagnosis and treatment technology, the health outcome of children with cancer has been greatly improved.

However, the side effects and complications associated with cancer and its treatment can seriously affect the appetite and food intake of children with cancer, resulting in malnutrition and a low quality of life. Therefore, it is very important to effectively improve the appetite of children with cancer during treatment.

Clinical methods to improve the appetite of cancer patients mainly include drugs, diet or nutrition intervention, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, but each intervention has its own advantages and disadvantages which makes the clinical application effect difficult to evaluate, in urgent need of more effective solutions to solve this problem.

Mukbang has shown great potential in helping children with cancer to improve their appetite and food consumption, finally promote nutritional health. What's more, the features of Mukbang, such as high-quality and clear pictures, relaxed atmosphere created by the video makers, sounds while eating, and attractive images of food, may promote viewers' appetite and increase their intake imperceptibly. In addition to that, watching Mukbang while eating can also provide a pleasant eating experience for children with cancer, and the interaction with the Mukbang anchor can also alleviate the loneliness of children who live in hospital for such a long time, so as to enhance the children's taste experience, relieve the negative emotions of loneliness and depression.

Research has found that Mukbang can help people with low appetites increase their food intake and the interest in food. Several studies have shown that videos containing food cues can increase viewers' appetite and decrease feelings of satiety to a certain extent. At the same time, Mukbang can also increase viewers' taste experience on the basis of physics and improve children's interest in food. Thus, Mukbang is a useful tool for those who are struggling to increase the amount and variety of acceptable foods and gain weight. It also suggests that clinicians who treat eating disorders should be aware that Mukbang is a potential factor in their illness, and that effective positive use may be helpful for patients with anorexia or restrictive eating.

Given that, Mukbang will be applied to help children with cancer to improve appetite, nutritional status and quality of life. Studies have found that food images, eating sounds and interactivity of Mukbang may play a leading role in improving appetite. Thus, we defined the active ingredients of Mukbang as food images, eating sound and interactivity in this study. Based on that, this study aims to compare the effect of active ingredient Mukbang, ordinary Mukbang and general short videos without food cues on improving appetite in children with cancer, to provide evidence for larger randomized controlled trials (RCTS) and provide a new direction for clinical departments to develop nutritional interventions and management programs for children with cancer.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Aged between 6 to 18 years old;
* Children in accordance with the guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of 12 Diseases related to hematologic diseases and malignant tumors (2021 version) issued by the General Office of the National Health Commission;
* At least experience one full cycle of chemotherapy;
* Children with moderate or higher symptoms of decreased appetite were screened for a list of treatment-related symptoms.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Children with serious cardiopulmonary disease, infection, organ damage, or genetic metabolic disease, immune deficiency disease, mental illness;
* Children with eye or ear dysfunction that prevents them from watching and listening to videos.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Self-reported appetite during the intervention
timeFrame: Change from baseline appetite during 5 days intervention
measure: Self-reported appetite during the intervention
timeFrame: Change from baseline appetite at 3 weeks follow-up
Secondary outcomes:
measure: The level of nutritional status
timeFrame: Change from baseline nutritional status at 5 days
measure: The level of nutritional status
timeFrame: Change from baseline nutritional status at 3-weeks follow-up
measure: The level of the body mass index of the children with cancer
timeFrame: Change from baseline BMI at 5 days
measure: The level of the body mass index of the children with cancer
timeFrame: Change from baseline BMI at 3-weeks follow-up
measure: The quality of life after the intervention
timeFrame: Change from baseline quality of life at 5 days
measure: The quality of life after the intervention
timeFrame: Change from baseline quality of life at 3-weeks follow-up
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Guangzhou
country: China
facility: Sun Yat-sen University
state: Guangdong
Study officials:
affiliation: Sun Yat-sen University
name: Wei Xia, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: