Caregivers' Early Experiences Using CareMobi: An mHealth Application to Support Care Coordination

Family caregivers often struggle to track daily caregiving tasks (eg, managing medications, appointments). To address this, our team developed CareMobi, a mobile app designed to make caregiving more organized, collaborative, and manageable.

We sought to evaluate early user satisfaction, real-world utility, and perceived value of CareMobi among informal caregivers.

A cross-sectional survey was administered between October 2023 and January 2024 to CareMobi users. The survey included Likert-scale items assessing satisfaction and usability, and open-ended prompts exploring use cases and improvement suggestions. Descriptive statistics summarized quantitative data, and open-ended responses were analyzed using inductive content analysis.

Among respondents (N = 51), 82% reported being satisfied or very satisfied with the app, and 76% found it easy or very easy to use. Highly valued features included appointment/calendar tracking (32 selections), health progress monitoring (30 selections), and file storage (20 selections). Caregivers use CareMobi across diverse contexts, from elder care to self-management, to coordinate care among multiple individuals and streamline information access. Open-ended responses revealed 3 primary areas of impact: improved communication, centralized information management, and support for symptom and medication tracking. Users requested enhancements to support care team coordination, emphasizing the importance of simple, functional tools for daily caregiving.

Preliminary findings, based on a small, self-selected sample, suggest CareMobi is a user-friendly tool that supports informal caregivers and facilitates care coordination. Results highlight the importance of caregiver-centered app design and indicate the need for further evaluation through longitudinal, mixed-methods research to assess long-term outcomes and integration into care routines.