Testing Lung Cancer Patients’ and Oncologists’ Experience with the Lalaby App for Monitoring the Quality of Life through Mobile Sensors and Integrated Questionnaires

Abstract

As there is now a growing interest in mHealth apps for cancer patients, we here present and test the Lalaby App to monitor lung cancer patients’ Quality of life (QoL) through mobile sensors and integrated questionnaires. The app was used in a 2-week study to register two lung cancer patients’ activity without problems or interruptions. The patients frequently reported activities, symptoms, and questionnaires, indicating their engagement with the app. They registered their experience through the UEQ-S integrated into the app. Patient 1 mainly reported a neutral experience, while Patient 2 found it highly positive. They considered the app leading-edge and helpful and would recommend it to others, while both patients valued it positively (3.72 and 4.64 on a scale of 1–5). The app’s aesthetics and its notifications helped their engagement. We found correlations between sensors’ data and patients’ QoL. We also detected QoL and functional status variations after treatment for both patients. After a “Tasks Test,” two oncologists assessed the app’s dashboard usability as excellent (SUS scores 85 and 87.5 on a 0–100 scale), easy-to-use and helpful. Their experience was positive (UEQ-S overall scale 2.81 (mean), −3 to +3 scale). The app allows monitoring the QoL of lung cancer patients remotely and in real-time while controlling patients’ experience to stop the use if necessary, avoiding overwhelm.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support for this study provided by the Instituto de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicaciones (ITACA) and the Hospital Universitario Dr. Peset de Valencia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sabina Asensio-Cuesta

Sabina Asensio-Cuesta has a PhD in Project Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) (Spain), where she is currently an Associate Professor. Her research interest focuses on Information and Communications Technology applied to ergonomics and health, user-centred design, usability, and user experience methods.

Ángel Sánchez-García

Ángel Sánchez García has an MSC in Artificial Intelligence from the UPV, where he is currently involved in research, focusing on developing Data Quality Software applied to the Pharmaceutical Industry and Smartphone Sensor Monitoring Software applied to Quality of Life.

Teresa Soria Comes

Teresa Soria-Comes is a medical oncologist who has dedicated her clinical and research work to lung cancer patients. She is currently writing her PhD thesis on the relationship of lung cancer patients’ immunological status with clinical, functional and emotional parameters.

Inmaculada Maestu

Inmaculada Maestu is a specialist Departmental Head in Medical Oncology and Healthcare Associate Professor at the University of Valencia. Her main field of work is lung cancer and the study of factors that influence the heterogeneity of elderly cancer patients.

Maria Martín Ureste

María Martin-Ureste is a medical oncologist at the Dr. Peset University Hospital and is responsible for treating and supporting lung cancer patients. She is also a member of the Thoracic Tumour Committee at the same hospital. Her research career and Ph.D. work is based on functional and inflammatory parameters in lung cancer.

J. Alberto Conejero

J. Alberto Conejero is a Full Professor of Applied Mathematics at the UPV. His research interests include dynamic systems, complex systems, partial differential equations, data science and multidisciplinary mathematical applications to engineering, medicine and biotechnology.

Juan M. García-Gómez

Juan Miguel Garcia-Gomez Ph.D in Computer Science, 2009. He is Professor at UPV. visiting at ESAT-KU Leuven and Farr/IHI-UCL. As leader of the Biomedical Data Science Lab, he focuses his research in data-driven approaches to improving healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.