| Description |
The gold standard for symptom reporting in healthcare is self-reporting. Self-reporting proves difficult to implement in children with cancer. They experience symptoms between clinic visits and during inpatient stays that are not accurately communicated to their care team, reducing the quality of their symptom management. Children may be more able to accurately report their symptoms throughout a range of inpatient and outpatient settings using an mHealth device. The Color Me Healthy app has been developed specifically to facilitate selfreporting in children with cancer. During the initial feasibility and acceptability of the Color Me Healthy app, parents and children identified opportunities to improve its user interface. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the usability of the revised Color Me Healthy app from the perspectives of children and their parents. Design and method: This user centered design study was guided by the Technology Acceptance Model of assessing Ease of Use and Usefulness. Three cycles of testing were conducted, each with 4-5 child parent dyads. During the interview, both child and parent participants were guided through the app and their independence was evaluated with a usability log. They answered a series of qualitative questions, and parents finished their evaluation by completing the Technology Acceptance Model Perceived Usefulness Scale. Results: The revised version of the Color Me Healthy app fulfills ease of use and usefulness requirements. Both parents and children indicate their preference for using the app as a method of symptom reporting. The app has demonstrated its usability. Implications for nursing: mHealth devices, the Color Me Healthy app in particular, are promising methods of symptom self-reporting in children with cancer. If available, self-reporting tools should be encouraged as much as possible. In situations where self-reporting is not possible, special consideration should be exercised to prevent miscommunication of a child's symptoms. Ensure that the patient and family members are given adequate opportunity to report their symptoms and promote environments that facilitate patient-care team communication. |
