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Interactive Medication Calendars to Support At-Home Care of Pediatric Patients With ALL

Lydia Haupt Levy1,2, Clara C Hatch1,2, Rachel Selig1

  • 1Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA.

JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics
|May 15, 2026
PubMed

Insights

Interactive medication calendars help families manage complex pediatric cancer treatments at home. These tools simplify chemotherapy schedules, reducing caregiver burden and medication errors for better at-home care.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Oncology
  • Digital Health Interventions
  • Caregiver Support

Background:

  • Pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatment is complex and lengthy, with most care occurring at home.
  • Families face challenges managing chemotherapy and supportive medications, leading to caregiver burden and errors.
  • There is a need for strategies to assist families with at-home medication administration.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop and pretest interactive medication calendars for pediatric ALL treatment.
  • To enhance family self-management of complex medication regimens.
  • To reduce caregiver burden and medication errors in pediatric oncology care.

Main Methods:

  • A 2-phase user-centered design process was employed.
  • Phase I involved qualitative analysis of stakeholder interviews to identify desired features.
  • Phase II included pretesting of the developed digital medication calendars with families.

Main Results:

  • Families desired a comprehensive treatment overview with phase-specific and risk-group information.
  • Digital, password-protected medication calendars were created, featuring treatment overviews, medication details, schedules, and administration icons.
  • Hyperlinked teaching sheets and printable annotation options were included; parents found calendars personalized and useful for at-home administration.

Conclusions:

  • Interactive medication calendars show potential to improve family self-management of pediatric ALL therapy.
  • These calendars can support medication administration across different risk groups and treatment phases.
  • Calendars are part of a digital intervention to enhance pediatric ALL therapy communication, with future pilot testing planned.
Abstract

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