Background: Parents of children with cancer must learn and retain crucial information necessary to provide safe care for their child. Smartphone applications (apps) provide a significant opportunity to meet the informational needs of these parents. We aimed to develop, refine, and evaluate a smartphone app, informed by the Children's Oncology Group (COG) expert consensus recommendations, to support the informational needs of parents of children with cancer.
Procedure: We employed a user-centered iterative mixed-methods approach in two phases (prototype development/refinement and pilot testing). We engaged parents and clinicians in evaluating the app via qualitative interviews and standardized tools that measured app quality (Mobile Application Rating Scale [MARS]), usability (System Usability Scale [SUS]), and acceptability (System Acceptability Scale [SAS]). We evaluated early usage patterns after public release.
Results: Thirty-two parents and 17 clinicians participated. Mean (± standard deviation [SD]) scores for app quality, usability, and acceptability were: MARS: 4.5 ± 0.7 on a 5-point scale; SUS: 86.7 ± 23.8 on a 100-point scale; and SAS: superior (61%); similar (28%); inferior (11%) to written materials. Qualitative findings largely confirmed the quantitative data. Downloads of the app during the first year following public release have exceeded 5000.
Conclusions: The COG KidsCare app prototype was found to be of high quality and received high usability and acceptability ratings. Further testing is needed to determine app effectiveness in improving parental knowledge regarding care of children with cancer.
Keywords: mHealth; patient-family education; pediatric oncology.
© 2023 The Authors. Pediatric Blood & Cancer published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.