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Developing "Care Assistant": A smartphone application to support caregivers of children with acute lymphoblastic
Jingting Wang1, Nengliang Yao2, Yuanyuan Wang1
1School of Nursing, Second Military Medical University, China.
Insights
A new Android app, "Care Assistant," was developed to support parents caring for children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) at home. It addresses key caregiver challenges by providing information, resources, and tracking tools.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Oncology
- Health Informatics
- Mobile Health (mHealth)
Background:
- Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer.
- Family caregivers of children with ALL face significant challenges managing care at home, including accessing information and coordinating treatment.
- There is a need for accessible, user-friendly tools to support these caregivers.
Purpose of the Study:
- To document the development process of the
- Care Assistant
- Android application.
Main Methods:
- Utilized key informant interviews and focus group studies involving caregivers, healthcare professionals, and software engineers.
- Incorporated caregiver feedback on challenges such as limited information access, financial/social support needs, communication gaps, and treatment tracking difficulties.
- Designed the app based on identified caregiver needs, incorporating features like treatment tracking, knowledge resources, and communication support.
Main Results:
- Identified critical caregiver challenges including information deficits, financial/social support needs, communication barriers, and difficulties in tracking treatment and test results.
- Developed the
- Care Assistant
- app with eight modules: personal information, treatment tracking, family care, financial and social assistance, knowledge centre, self-assessment questionnaires, interactive platform, and reminders.
- Created a complementary web-based administration portal for app management.
Conclusions:
- The
- Care Assistant
- app was developed to address specific challenges faced by family caregivers of children with ALL.
- The app aims to improve information access, streamline treatment tracking, and enhance support for caregivers.
- Future studies will evaluate the usability and effectiveness of the
- Care Assistant
- application.
Abstract:
Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is the most common childhood malignancy. Caring for children with ALL is an uncommon experience for parents without medical training. They urgently need professional assistance when their children are recovering at home. This paper documents the process of developing an Android application (app) "Care Assistant" for family caregivers of children with ALL. Key informant interviews and focus group studies were used before programming the app. The key informants and focus group members included: caregivers of children with ALL, cancer care physicians and nurses, and software engineers. We found several major challenges faced by caregivers: limited access to evidence-based clinic information, lack of financial and social assistance, deficient communications with doctors or nurses, lack of disease-related knowledge, and inconvenience of tracking treatments and testing results. This feedback was used to develop "Care Assistant". This app has eight modules: personal information, treatment tracking, family care, financial and social assistance, knowledge centre, self-assessment questionnaires, interactive platform, and reminders. We have also developed a web-based administration portal to manage the app. The usability and effectiveness of "Care Assistant" will be evaluated in future studies.
