BACKGROUND
Mobile health (mHealth) applications can enhance patient-provider communication, playing a crucial role in the diagnosis, treatment, quality of life, and outcomes for patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC).
OBJECTIVE
This study will evaluate the usability and satisfaction of My MBC Journey, an app designed for metastatic breast cancer, to inform future modifications.
METHODS
We will recruit a prospective, cross-sectional convenience sample of 25 patients with MBC and a sample of 15 members of the care team (i.e., caregivers, nurse navigators, and medical oncologists). Applying iterative, convergent mixed methods, we will conduct qualitative, semi-structured interviews with the patients and care team members. We also will collect quantitative data on usability through app analytics and standardized questionnaires (i.e. Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS), the Mobile Application rating Scale user version (uMARS), and System Usability Scale.). Qualitative interviews will be audio recorded and analyzed using NVivo® software to identify mHealth implementation themes.
RESULTS
The study’s results will inform future app design modifications and gauge preliminary effect size in support of future evaluations of the app’s efficacy in improving patient-provider communication.
CONCLUSIONS
Our long-term goal is to improve patient-provider communication by developing mHealth apps that empower patients to collect and share clinically relevant, patient-reported information in a timely manner.