Currently accepted at: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Dec 15, 2025
Date Accepted: Sep 24, 2026
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/89649
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
A User-Centric Approach to the Development of a Yoga Mobile Application for Patients with Thoracic Cancer and their Family Caregivers
ABSTRACT
Background:
We recently completed the efficacy testing of an instructor-led yoga program for patients with a thoracic cancer undergoing radiotherapy and their family caregivers. Translating an instructor-led intervention to a mobile application-based delivery may facilitate the implementation of this yoga program into routine oncological clinical care.
Objective:
The current study seeks to develop a prototype of the app-based yoga program with a user centric approach.
Methods:
Ten patients with a primary diagnosis of lung or esophageal cancer and their family caregivers (total n=20) participated in semi-structured interviews. Half of the sample had previously participated in the instructor led yoga program and half of the sample was yoga naïve. Participants provided feedback on various mockups, wireframes and yoga videos to guide the development of the app’s content, features and workflow.
Results:
All patients (60% male, 70% NHW, mean age: 62 years, 90% stage III) and their caregivers (80% female, 50% NHW, mean age: 61 years) indicated that developing an app-based program is important and useful. Of the 20 participants, 95% mentioned that having an initial orientation with a yoga interventionist is important and 90% stated that at least one check-in should be available (65% desired weekly check-ins). Participants provided feedback on characteristics of the instructor and instruction preferences. Other desired features included the importance of scheduling sessions on a calendar (95%), monitoring progress (95%), receiving practice reminders (90%), content on symptom management education (90%), and daily inspirations (85%). All participants indicated the importance of including practices of various lengths.
Conclusions:
Both patients and caregivers deemed an app-based yoga program as useful. Regardless of their level of yoga experience, while varying in frequency, almost all participants desire at least some contact with a live yoga instructor. These data have informed the development of a prototype that we are currently field-testing this app to ensure feasibility and acceptability
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Copyright
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