In a study presented at the 49^th Annual Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Annual Meeting, researchers validated the feasibility and usability of a mobile health application for tracking chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) symptoms among patients who received an allogeneic stem cell transplant.

“Using a select mobile health application for chronic GVHD symptom tracking and as a repository for symptom type, onset, and severity may facilitate timely patient symptom report and could provide objective data for clinician assessments. Early reporting, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment may result in less severe chronic GVHD,” explained Jamie Oliva PhD, ANP-BC, FNAP, BMTCN, Wilmot Cancer Institute, Rochester, NY, and coauthors.

Chronic GVHD is common among patients who receive allogeneic stem cell transplants, with approximately 50% of patients developing the condition after transplant. Patient symptom reporting is very important for clinician assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic GVHD. Therefore, researchers designed a study using a modified existing mobile health application to determine the feasibility and usability of the app for symptom tracking.

Patients were recruited from the Wilmot Cancer Institute’s population of adult patients who received allogeneic stem cell transplant using convenience sampling. Patients who consented and were enrolled were onboarded to the mobile health application and received instructions regarding app-based surveys and 30 days of symptom tracking.

Researchers extracted demographic data from the medical record and downloaded feasibility and usability data from the company that owns the mobile health application. At the interim analysis, 17 patients (52.9% male) aged 28 to 71 years completed 30 days of symptom tracking.

Most patients received reduced-intensity conditioning (54.7%) and peripheral blood stem cells (94.1%) from haploidentical or unrelated donors (76.5%) to treat leukemia/marrow disorders (94.1%). Many patients (70%) reported having some form of GVHD before study participation. Overall, 64% of patients used the mobile health application at least once a week and 89% had high usability scores.

The study met defined mobile health application feasibility and usability thresholds. “We anticipate that the trend toward feasibility/usability of the modified mobile health application in this specific patient population will continue based on these findings and the ease of mobile health application use by the general population,” concluded Dr Oliva and colleagues.

Source:

Oliva J, Rulli B, Knapp-Clevenger R. Feasibility and Usability of a Mobile Health Application (mHA) for Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease Symptom (cGVHD) Tracking in Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant (SCT) Patients: An Interim Report. Presented at Oncology Nursing Society Annual Congress. April 24-28, 2024; Washington, DC.