{"doi":"10.21203/rs.2.20826/v1","title":"Harnessing mobile health technology to support long-term chronic illness management: Exploring family caregiver support needs in the outpatient setting","abstract":"Abstract BACKGROUND Family caregiving is an important public health issue, particularly with the aging population. In recent years, mobile health (mHealth) technology has emerged as a potential low-cost, scalable platform to address caregiver support needs, and thereby alleviate caregiver burden. This study sought to examine the support needs of family caregivers in their lived experiences of outpatient care in an effort to inform the development of a future mHealth intervention. METHODS The current study is a part of a larger study in a population of family caregivers to patients undergoing blood and marrow transplant (BMT), consisting of three phases: i) tablet-based caregiver-facing intervention design (Phase I); ii) usability testing in an inpatient healthcare setting (Phase II); and iii) randomized trial to expand the user group to an outpatient setting (Phase III). In an earlier pilot study (Phases I and II), a tablet-based caregiver-facing application was developed and tested for supporting inpatient care. As part of Phase III, we conducted 20 semi-structured interviews in two outpatient BMT clinics at a large academic medical center in the Midwestern United States. A thematic analysis was performed to define emerging themes. RESULTS Our data analysis identified five primary themes that BMT caregivers faced: I. lifestyle restrictions due to the patient’s immunocompromised state; II. unfamiliar medical tasks required on behalf of patients; III. unmet needs based on existing resources; IV. adopting strategies due to the new roles; and V. reformation of social relationships with family and friends. Based on these findings, we observed three design considerations to guide the development of a future mHealth intervention: i) connecting caregivers with other caregivers through Chat Forums; ii) enabling video conferencing with healthcare providers; and iii) using readily accessible activities (e.g., journaling) to help express emotions. CONCLUSION The findings herein captured the family caregiver’s lived experiences during outpatient care. There was broad agreement that caregiving was challenging and stressful. Thus, effective and scalable interventions to support caregivers are needed. This study provided data to guide the content and design of a future mHealth intervention in the outpatient setting.","journal":"Research Square","year":2020,"id":128091,"datarank":0.10397207708399181,"base_score":0.6931471805599453,"endowment":0.6931471805599453,"self_citation_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9541,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":578376,"name":"Dima Chaar","orcid":"0000-0001-6755-0179","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":578377,"name":"Jacob Kedroske","orcid":"0000-0003-3414-2253","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":578378,"name":"Rebecca Vue","orcid":"0000-0002-1414-7164","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":578379,"name":"Grant Chappell","orcid":"0000-0001-7236-5402","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":478870,"name":"Amanda Mazzoli","orcid":"0000-0001-6625-3092","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":379278,"name":"Afton L. 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