Villalobos Jennifer Paola, Bull Sheana Salyers, Portz Jennifer Dickman
Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO, United States.
Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Colorado, Aurora, CO, United States.
JMIR Aging. 2022 Oct 6;5(4):e35592. doi: 10.2196/35592.
Heart failure is a leading cause of death among older adults. Digital health can increase access to and awareness of palliative care for patients with advanced heart failure and their caregivers. However, few palliative care digital interventions target heart failure or patients' caregivers, family, and friends, termed here as the social convoy. To address this need, the Social Convoy Palliative Care (Convoy-Pal) mobile intervention was developed to deliver self-management tools and palliative care resources to older adults with advanced heart failure and their social convoys.
The goal of the research was to test the acceptability and usability of Convoy-Pal among older adults with advanced heart failure and their social convoys.
Convoy-Pal includes tablet-based and smartwatch tools facilitating self-management and access to palliative care resources. Older adults and social convoy caregivers completed an acceptability and usability interview via Zoom, including open-ended questions and the Mobile Application Rating Scale: User Version (uMARS). Descriptive analysis was conducted to summarize the results of open-ended feedback and self-reported acceptability and usability.
A total of 26 participants (16 older adults and 10 social convoy caregivers) participated in the interview. Overall, the feedback from users was good (uMARS mean 3.96/5 [SD 0.81]). Both older adults and social convoy caregivers scored information provided by Convoy-Pal the highest (mean 4.22 [SD 0.75] and mean 4.21 [SD 0.64], respectively). Aesthetics, functionality, and engagement were also perceived as acceptable (mean >3.5). Open-ended feedback resulted in 5 themes including improvements to goal setting, monitoring tools, daily check-in call feature, portal and mobile app, and convoy assessment.
Convoy-Pal was perceived as acceptable with good usability among older adults with heart failure and their social convoy caregivers. With good acceptability, Convoy-Pal may ultimately lead to increased access to palliative care resources and facilitate self-management among older adults with heart failure and their social convoy caregivers.
心力衰竭是老年人死亡的主要原因。数字健康可以增加晚期心力衰竭患者及其护理人员获得姑息治疗的机会并提高他们对姑息治疗的认识。然而，很少有姑息治疗数字干预措施针对心力衰竭患者或其护理人员、家人和朋友，本文将这些人称为社会支持群体。为满足这一需求，开发了社会支持群体姑息治疗（Convoy-Pal）移动干预措施，为晚期心力衰竭的老年人及其社会支持群体提供自我管理工具和姑息治疗资源。
本研究的目的是测试Convoy-Pal在晚期心力衰竭老年人及其社会支持群体中的可接受性和可用性。
Convoy-Pal包括基于平板电脑和智能手表的工具，便于自我管理和获取姑息治疗资源。老年人和社会支持群体护理人员通过Zoom完成了一次可接受性和可用性访谈，包括开放式问题和移动应用评分量表：用户版（uMARS）。进行描述性分析以总结开放式反馈以及自我报告的可接受性和可用性的结果。
共有26名参与者（16名老年人和10名社会支持群体护理人员）参与了访谈。总体而言，用户的反馈良好（uMARS平均分为3.96/5[标准差0.81]）。老年人和社会支持群体护理人员对Convoy-Pal提供的信息评分最高（分别为平均4.22[标准差0.75]和平均4.21[标准差0.64]）。美观性、功能性和参与度也被认为是可以接受的（平均分>3.5）。开放式反馈产生了5个主题，包括目标设定、监测工具、每日签到电话功能、门户网站和移动应用程序以及支持群体评估的改进。
Convoy-Pal在心力衰竭老年人及其社会支持群体护理人员中被认为是可接受的，可用性良好。由于具有良好的可接受性，Convoy-Pal最终可能会增加晚期心力衰竭老年人及其社会支持群体护理人员获得姑息治疗资源的机会，并促进自我管理。
