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68. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie e. V. (GMDS)

17.09. - 21.09.23, Heilbronn

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Lessons learned of a patient-centered development of an app for measuring Quality of Life in oncology

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  • Chantal N. L. Beutter - MOLIT Institute gGmbH, Heilbronn, Germany
  • Katharina Zeller - MOLIT Institute gGmbH, Heilbronn, Germany
  • Christian Fegeler - MOLIT Institute gGmbH, Heilbronn, Germany; Heilbronn University of Applied Science, Heilbronn, Germany

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie. 68. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie e. V. (GMDS). Heilbronn, 17.-21.09.2023. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2023. DocAbstr. 67

doi: 10.3205/23gmds064, urn:nbn:de:0183-23gmds0649

Published: September 15, 2023

© 2023 Beutter et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

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Introduction: The measurement of Quality of Life (QoL) is becoming increasingly important in cancer treatments nowadays as it has a significant impact on the course of therapy and outcome. To enable a regular survey of QoL, an app was developed that empowers patients to measure their personal QoL via questionnaires and patient diary.

Methods: To develop an accepted and applicable app, three test stages were conducted during development. Within these tests, unstructured feedback was collected via interviews and structured feedback through the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ+). After each test, findings were processed to be included into further development. Adaptions of implementations were re-presented in following tests until a satisfactory evaluation could be achieved. Changes are presented within this paper as orientation for others.

Results: Modifications within the app affected basic processes as well as representations. For example, was it originally planned to use the QLQ-C30 questionnaire for survey - but since it was rated as too extensive for regular responses, it was replaced by the shorter EQ-5D-5L. It could also be determined that the comprehensibility of icons wasn’t given, which resulted in labelling all icons. In general, it was observed that content should be visible directly on one page instead of clicking on icons or being directed to additional pages. Functions such as filter or gamification elements were simplified or excluded for the time being. After a satisfaction of over 70% was achieved, tests were completed, and the app was published.

Conclusion: Tests showed that cancer patients have specific requirements for an app to continuously survey their QoL. With a user-centered development, a satisfactory solution could be developed according to the current state of the art. However, it will be further investigated whether a more flexible survey is possible to enable not only a punctual survey, but also monitoring.

The MOLIT Institute is a non-profit organization, funded by donation. The last author is one of the founders of the MOLIT Institute.

The authors declare that an ethics committee vote is not required.