Evaluating the Effects of a Mobile Health App on Reducing Patient Care Needs and Improving Quality of Life After Oral Cancer Surgery: Quasiexperimental Study

Abstract

Background Intervention with a mobile Health (mHealth) app can improve the efficacy of early detection of oral cancer and the outcomes for patients taking oral anticancer medications. The quality of life of oral cancer patients is significantly reduced within three months after surgery; also, their needs for nursing care and health information increase, mainly due to side effects and associated psychological problems. Objective This study aimed to evaluate changes in the care needs and quality of life of patients with oral cancer after receiving the intervention of a newly developed mHealth app. Methods After surgery, oral cancer patients were divided into an experimental group (n=50) who received the mHealth app intervention and a control group (n=50) who received routine health care and instruction. After 3 months of intervention, survey questionnaires were used to assess the patients’ quality of life, nursing care needs, and acceptance of the mHealth app. Results The physiological care needs were significantly decreased in the experimental group compared with the control group (P<.05). Although the differences were not statistically significant, the psychological needs, communication needs, and care support needs all improved after the mHealth app intervention. The overall improvement in quality of life was higher in the experimental group than in the control group (–7.24 vs –4.36). In terms of intention to use, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use, the acceptability scores of the mHealth app were significantly increased after 3 months of intervention (P<.05). Conclusions Compared with routine health care and instruction, for patients after surgery, the education/information intervention using the mHealth app significantly reduced their nursing care needs, improved their quality of life, and increased their acceptance of using an mHealth app on a mobile device. These findings can provide a theoretical basis for future health care app design and improvement. This study suggests that an mHealth app should be incorporated into the routine care of oral cancer patients to provide medical information quickly and improve their self-management abilities, thereby reducing the patients’ need for physiological care and improving their quality of life. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04049968; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04049968

Effects of a mobile oral care app on oral mucositis, pain, nutritional status, and quality of life in patients with head and neck cancer: A quasi‐experimental study

“…Studies have revealed that mobile app-based intervention can effectively increase the QoL among women with breast cancer (Cinar et al, 2021), allow medical staff to promptly assess a patient's symptoms and quickly provide health care advice (Blomberg et al, 2016), and better identify the optimal course of patient care (Wang et al, 2020).…”

“…Thus, mobile apps have become an important auxiliary tool for providing support for self-care management after discharge. However, a previous mobile app intervention study showed some limitations of mobile apps, including that patients felt it was challenging to wait for contact with health care professionals (Blomberg et al, 2016) and that different content of information was needed at different time points in the disease process (Wang et al, 2020). Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effectiveness of a mobile app to support oral mucositis care to improve the nutritional status and reduce the occurrence of oral mucositis of patients with head and neck cancer undergoing CCRT.…”

“…Mobile applications (‘apps’) integrate visual and auditory stimuli, and the combination of educational content with graphic descriptions or animations helps to improve the effectiveness of learning (Cnossen et al, 2016). Studies have indicated that using information and communication technology such as mobile apps to monitor clinical symptoms can enhance patients' symptom control and self‐management capabilities (Blomberg et al, 2016; Wang et al, 2020) and they may then cope better with symptoms during systemic therapy (Kuhar et al, 2020). Mobile apps can provide patients with relevant health care knowledge, informative animations, a communication platform and provide repetitions that support learning in their own environment.…”

“…Studies have revealed that mobile app‐based intervention can effectively increase the QoL among women with breast cancer (Cinar et al, 2021), allow medical staff to promptly assess a patient's symptoms and quickly provide health care advice (Blomberg et al, 2016), and better identify the optimal course of patient care (Wang et al, 2020). Many studies have proven that patients with cancer can regularly self‐monitor changes in their symptoms and bodily functions (Langius‐Eklöf et al, 2017; Zini et al, 2019), and improve their self‐efficacy, symptom interference, and QoL during chemotherapy (Zhu et al, 2020) using mobile apps.…”

Effects of Mobile Application Program (App)-Assisted Health Education on Preventive Behaviors and Cancer Literacy among Women with Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia

“…Self-efficacy may also be seen as confidence in one’s ability to perform well in a domain of life that may be associated with improved health behavior or a decreased disease burden. Patients with various cancers may benefit from the support of an App-based health promotion program in terms of advancing health literacy [ 22 ], enhancing related behavior changes, such as self-efficacy and self-management [ 23 ], reducing nursing care needs, and improving quality of life after surgery [ 24 ]. App-assisted health education is an innovative model used to increase health literacy and improve health-related behaviors, including self-efficacy of behavior and positive behavioral change, and may be useful in some cancer patients.…”