The Acceptability of a Palliative Care Mobile Application for Older Adults with Heart Failure and Caregivers (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Digital health provides opportunities for patients with advanced heart failure and their caregivers to engage in palliative care, but is relatively underexplored. OBJECTIVE To test the acceptability and usability of Convoy-Pal, a mobile palliative care solution for older adults and their family and informal caregivers, i.e., their “social convoy”. METHODS Convoy-Pal includes tablet based and smart watch tools facilitating self-management and access to palliative care resources. Older adults and convoy caregivers completed an acceptability and usability interview via Zoom including open ended questions and the Mobile Application Rating Scale: User Version (uMars). Descriptive analysis was conducted to summarize the results of open-ended feedback and self-reported acceptability and usability. RESULTS Overall, the feedback from users was good (uMars M=3.96, out of 5). Open ended feedback from the interviews included improving graphs and adding monitoring features. CONCLUSIONS Convoy-Pal is perceived acceptable with good usability for both older adults and their caregivers.

[1]  Frank T Materia,et al.  Acceptability of Intervention Design Factors in mHealth Intervention Research: Experimental Factorial Study , 2020, JMIR mHealth and uHealth.

[2]  J. Kutner,et al.  Using Grounded Theory to Inform the Human-Centered Design of Digital Health in Geriatric Palliative Care , 2020, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

[3]  S. Lorenzl,et al.  Telemedicine in Palliative Care: Implementation of New Technologies to Overcome Structural Challenges in the Care of Neurological Patients , 2019, Front. Neurol..

[4]  Ashley Bagheri,et al.  Telemedicine Video Visits for patients receiving palliative care: A qualitative study , 2019, The American journal of hospice & palliative care.

[5]  Lippincott Williams Wilkins,et al.  Correction to: Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics-2018 Update: A Report From the American Heart Association. , 2018, Circulation.

[6]  Rebecca Schnall,et al.  Health Information Technology Usability Evaluation Scale (Health-ITUES) for Usability Assessment of Mobile Health Technology: Validation Study , 2018, JMIR mHealth and uHealth.

[7]  K. Swartz,et al.  Telemedicine and Palliative Care: an Increasing Role in Supportive Oncology , 2017, Current Oncology Reports.

[8]  B. Head,et al.  Telehealth in Palliative Care: A Systematic Review of Patient-Reported Outcomes , 2017 .

[9]  Sarah Iribarren,et al.  Review and Analysis of Existing Mobile Phone Apps to Support Heart Failure Symptom Monitoring and Self-Care Management Using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) , 2016, JMIR mHealth and uHealth.

[10]  Stoyan R. Stoyanov,et al.  Development and Validation of the User Version of the Mobile Application Rating Scale (uMARS) , 2016, JMIR mHealth and uHealth.

[11]  Hae-Ra Han,et al.  A Systematic Review of mHealth-Based Heart Failure Interventions , 2016, The Journal of cardiovascular nursing.

[12]  Oksana Zelenko,et al.  Mobile App Rating Scale: A New Tool for Assessing the Quality of Health Mobile Apps , 2015, JMIR mHealth and uHealth.

[13]  Ali Idri,et al.  Empirical Studies on Usability of mHealth Apps: A Systematic Literature Review , 2015, Journal of Medical Systems.

[14]  José E. Pérez-Lu,et al.  Effectiveness of eHealth Interventions and Information Needs in Palliative Care: A Systematic Literature Review , 2014, Journal of medical Internet research.

[15]  C. Ward.  The need for palliative care in the management of heart failure , 2002, Heart.