Purpose
To inform the development of an eHealth application for patients with cervical cancer for monitoring supportive care needs, perceived care supply and quality of life.
Methods
A mixed-method design was conducted. The 19-month process involved: (a) a literature review to screen the components of applications, (b) a cross-sectional needs assessment for patients with cervical cancer to define the needs and application program draft, (c) expert consultation to refine the draft, (d) software development, and (e) a pilot testing and users experience description. Patients in the intervention group received a 7-day application intervention combined with usual care. Supportive care needs, perceived care supply, quality of life and user experience were collected.
Results
Literature review results conducted the importance of fully preparation before application development, especially the supportive care needs assessment. Subsequent supportive care needs investigation revealed the most urgent needs were informational needs and privacy protection. 43 expert suggestions for application improvement were refined. The new application contained the patient and the healthcare professional portal. At day 7, the pretest/posttest changes significant between-group differences in increasing perceived care supply and quality of life, with the intervention group exhibiting larger tendency on needs and supply than the control. Users had positive experience with the application.
Conclusions
This study provides feasibility of the application targeting access to supportive care, which may be effective for relieving patients’ needs and improving perceived supply and quality of life.
Background
To explore the M-MDSCs frequency in T2DM patients and whether it is corelated to the glycaemia, infection and tumor development.
Methods
We recruited healthy volunteers and T2DM patients for this study. M-MDSCs frequency in the peripheral blood, FPG, HbA1c levels, and other relevant indicators were detected. T2DM patients were further divided into good glycaemic control (GGC) and poor control (PGC) groups, and each patient was followed up for at least 6 months after the M-MDSCs were tested. We then analysed and compared the M-MDSCs frequency in the healthy population to various subgroups of T2DM patients, as well as the associations between M-MDSCs, glycaemia, infection, and tumor development.
Results
The M-MDSCs frequency was significantly higher in T2DM patients with PGC than in the healthy population (2.54% vs 0.93%), but there was no significant difference between patients with GGC and the healthy group (P > 0.05). The M-MDSCs frequency was positively correlated with FPG and HbA1c levels (R = 0.517 and 0.315, respectively). In addition, the patients who had tumors had the highest M-MDSCs number (12.89%), vastly more than those in the patients who only had an infection (3.14%) and the patients who had neither infection nor tumor (1.95%). When M-MDSCs frequency was higher than 2.8% or 11.24%, the risk ratios for infection or tumor occurrence were 2.5-fold and 43.2-fold higher in T2DM patients, respectively.
Conclusions
Elevated M-MDSC levels are associated with hyperglycaemia and may be a useful indicator for predicting the risk of infection or tumor development in T2DM patients.
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