Preferences for using a mobile app in sickle cell disease self-management: Descriptive qualitative study

Background: Individuals with sickle cell disease (SCD) and their caregivers may benefit from technology-based resources to improve disease self-management. Objective: This study explores the preferences regarding a mobile health (mHealth) app to facilitate self-management in adults with SCD and their caregivers living in urban and rural communities. Methods: Five community listening sessions were conducted in 2 urban and rural communities among adults with SCD and their caregivers (N=43). Each session comprised 4 to 15 participants. Participants were asked questions on methods of finding information about SCD self-care, satisfaction with current methods for finding SCD management information, support for SCD management, important features for development of an mHealth app, and areas of benefit for using an mHealth app for SCD self-management. An inductive-deductive content analysis approach was implemented to identify the critical themes. Results: Seven critical themes emerged, including the current methods for receiving self-management information, desired information, recommendations for communicating sickle cell self-management information, challenges of disease management, types of support received for disease management, barriers to and facilitators of using an mHealth app, and feature preferences for an mHealth app. In addition, we found that the participants were receptive to using mHealth apps in SCD self-management. Conclusions: This study expands our knowledge on the use of mHealth technology to reduce information access barriers pertaining to SCD. The findings can be used to develop a patient-centered, user-friendly mHealth app to facilitate disease self-management, thus increasing access to resources for families of patients with SCD residing in rural communities.