JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In the world cancer is the leading cause of death. To ensure care processes, the World Health Organization recommends incorporating the Patient Reported Experience Measure and the Patient-Reported Outcome Measure. New technologies allow large volumes of data to be converted into useful information. Considering that many cancer patients have adverse effects and doubts during their treatment, the development of technologies can be a viable alternative for reporting and monitoring, which must be in accordance with the needs of people.

Objective:

to present the results of a qualitative study, aimed at identifying the needs of cancer patients and health personnel during the breast cancer treatment process to design a mobile application that allows the reporting of adverse symptoms and impact and improving the quality of life.

Methods:

with focus groups, the information needs of breast cancer patients and health professionals were raised. The patients were those who were undergoing chemotherapy treatment and those who had finished it between 3 months and 1 year. The group of health professionals was involved in the care of patients and belonged to the cancer committee of the cancer center where the study was conducted. A written survey was incorporated into this group.

Results:

Patients mention four areas of information: general description of the disease; treatment; normal and abnormality meters in response to treatment; symptoms to report. Professionals consider it necessary to provide guidance in the administrative-financial process and require prior clinical information when patients have consulted other professionals. Categorized four areas of information needs: (1) knowledge regarding the disease in general, (2) feedback for symptom reporting, (3) support in administrative processes, and (4) complementary information. The solution proposal consists of a mobile application, called +Contigo, with four modules, whose functionality is different, depending on the actors involved (patient, caregiver, moderator, professional and administrator).

Conclusions:

the information needs are specified in the design of +Contigo with four modules: (1) Clinical information, which offers multimedia information about the disease, treatment and tests; (2) Report and assistance to report symptoms with notification to a health professional, who can respond, depending on the severity of the reported symptom; (3) Assistant administrator to deliver information and help record the necessary information of the process and (4) Community, to share with other patients data on activities, clothing, food and complementary therapies. The technical design of the mobile application has three-layer architecture, based on microservices with portable technologies, whose most important functional feature is its high flexibility.