Hematopoietic Cell Transplant and Use of Massage for Improved Symptom Management: Results from a Pilot Randomized Control Trial

Table 2

(a) Symptoms from the nurses records over 29 days (7 days before to 21 days after transplant). Intervention (I; 𝑁=16) versus control (C; 𝑁=7).

Symptom (scale range)	Arm	Mean ±SD	ES	p °
Days of pain > 3 (on 0–10 scale)	I; C	7.8±4.9; 8.0±5.5	0.04	0.93
Days of vomiting	I; C	5.7±4.6; 5.2±5.0	0.11	0.82
Days of mucositis	I; C	9.9±7.1; 14.7±8.9	0.63	0.18
Immune recovery; (Days until 3 days of WBC > 500)	I; C	17.1±5.1; 17.9±10.1	0.12	0.85
Days with high symptom burden (pain > 3, nausea, mucositis, and vomiting)¹	I; C	1.8±0.5; 2.0±0.6	0.26	0.57

(b) Symptoms from child self-report: at baseline and 1 week after transplant. Intervention (I; 𝑁=15) versus control (C; 𝑁=7).

Symptom (scale range)	Arm	Mean ±SD		ES	𝑝^∘
		Before	After
Nausea and vomiting¹ (0–4)	I; C	0.3±0.7; 1.1±1.3	2.3±1.5; 2.3±1.5	+0.01	0.98
Loss of appetite¹ (0–4)	I; C	1.3±0.7; 2.0±1.7	2.8±1.5; 3.3±1.0	+0.36	0.44
Feeling tired/run down¹ (0–4)	I; C	1.5±1.3; 1.0±0.8	1.9±1.3; 3.0±1.0	+0.86	0.08
Pain¹ (0–4)	I; C	0.8±1.0; 1.3±1.5	1.2±1.2; 1.6±0.8	+0.42	0.37
Summary score of 3 moderate/severe symptoms of fatigue, pain, and nausea¹** (0–3)	I; C	0.3±0.4; 0.3±0.8	1.1+1.1; 1.7+0.8	+0.62	0.23

¹Higher score: worse symptoms.
*ES: standardized effect sizes (“+” ES is advantage for intervention; “−” ES is advantage for control).
° t-test.
SD: standard deviation.
**Sum of moderate or severe (“quite a bit/very much” versus “none/a little/somewhat”) symptoms of fatigue, nausea, and pain, 1 week self-report (range: 0–3 symptoms).
All measures were from the BASES questionnaire except pain was measured using the Peds quality of life scale.