Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Feb 27, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 4, 2019 - Apr 10, 2019
Date Accepted: Apr 18, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Are skin cancer apps already in our patients’ mind? Results of a cross-sectional study investigating patient attitudes and their awareness towards skin cancer-related apps
ABSTRACT
Background:
In the emerging era of digitalization and electronic health, skin cancer-related apps represent useful tools to support the dermatologic consultation and examination. Yet, little is known about how patients perceive the value of such apps.
Objective:
To investigate patient attitudes and their awareness towards skin cancer-related apps.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study including 200 patients from the oncological outpatient unit was conducted at the University Hospital (LMU Munich, Germany) between September and December 2018. Patients were asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire on the popularity and usefulness of health-related and skin cancer-related apps. Descriptive analysis was performed with expression of categorical variables as frequencies and percentages. For continuous variables, the median and range were indicated. Contingency tables and chi²-tests were performed to investigate associations between sociodemographic data and selected items of the questionnaire.
Results:
A total of 98.9% (195/197) of patients had never used skin cancer-related apps or could not remember. In 49.7% (93/187) of cases, patients were unsure about the usefulness of skin cancer apps, while 42.6% (78/183) thought that skin cancer apps could supplement or support the professional skin examination performed by a physician. However, 47.9% (90/188) were interested in acquiring more information by their dermatologists about skin cancer apps. Young age (P=.002), male gender (P=.02), a previous history of melanoma (P=.004), and higher educational level (P=.002) were significantly associated with a positive attitude. Nevertheless, 55.9% (105/188) preferred a printed patient brochure on skin cancer to downloading and using an app.
Conclusions:
The experience and knowledge of skin cancer-related apps was surprisingly low in this population, although there was a high general interest in more information about such apps. Printed patient brochures were the preferred information source.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
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