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Development of a Smartphone Application to Monitor Pediatric Patient-Reported Outcomes
Jingting Wang1, Nengliang Aaron Yao, Yanyan Liu
1Author Affiliations: School of Nursing, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China (Drs Wang, Liu, Geng, and Yuan and Mrs Wang); Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville (Dr Yao); and Departments of Nursing (Dr Shen) and Hematology and Oncology (Mrs Zhang), Shanghai Children's Medical Center; and Department of Hematology, Children's Hospital of Soochow University, Jiangsu (Mrs Shen), China.
Insights
A new smartphone app effectively tracks patient-reported outcomes for children with chronic diseases. This tool enhances data collection for pediatric health research and clinical care.
Area of Science:
- Health Services Research
- Pediatric Nursing
- Software Engineering
Background:
- Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are crucial in clinical trials and population health.
- Tracking PROs in pediatric chronic diseases presents unique challenges.
- Existing methods for PRO collection can be cumbersome for young patients and families.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a user-friendly smartphone application for collecting patient-reported outcomes in pediatric chronic disease patients.
- To evaluate the usability and feasibility of the developed app and its administration portal.
Main Methods:
- Collaborative development by a multidisciplinary team (health services researchers, pediatric nurses, software engineers).
- Iterative design incorporating group discussions and multiple feedback rounds.
- Usability testing with pediatric patients (8-17 years), parents, and nurses using Chinese versions of validated PRO instruments.
Main Results:
- The app successfully collected demographic information and patient-reported outcomes using age-appropriate questionnaires.
- Usability testing revealed high user satisfaction; participants found the app easy to use with child-friendly interfaces.
- The web-based administration portal was perceived as simple and efficient for managing data and users by nurses.
Conclusions:
- The developed smartphone app and administration portal effectively meet the needs of researchers and clinical nurses.
- This technology has significant potential to improve the assessment of quality of life and symptoms in pediatric patients through enhanced PRO collection.
- The app facilitates efficient and accessible PRO data gathering, supporting better clinical decision-making and research.
Abstract:
Patient-reported outcomes are increasingly emphasized in clinical trials and population health studies. Our research team developed a smartphone app to track patient-reported outcomes of children with chronic diseases. The purpose of this study is to develop a patient-reported outcome reporting app and evaluate its usability. A multidisciplinary research team including health services researchers, pediatric nurses, and software engineers worked collaboratively in developing the patient-reported outcome app and administration portal. Group discussions and several rounds of feedback and modification were used. Ten pediatric patients with cancer, five parents, and two nurses participated in the usability study. We conducted content analyses in app development and usability evaluation. The app collected demographic information and patient-reported outcomes. Patient-reported outcomes were collected by Chinese versions of pediatric Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Short Forms and Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Parent Proxy Report Scales for Children. Pediatric patients aged 8 to 17 years and parents with a 5- to 7-year-old pediatric child used different age-appropriate questionnaires. The Web-based administration portal helped to manage demographic information, questionnaires, administrators, and survey-conducting organizations. The users liked the app. All participants felt that this app was easy to use and the interfaces were friendly to children. Nurses thought the administration portal interfaces were simple and the data were convenient to download for further analysis. We conclude that the app and its administration portal meet researchers and clinical nurses' demand and have potential to promote patient-reported outcomes in assessing quality of life and symptoms of pediatric patients.
