The Effect of Education Performed Using Mobile Application on Supportive Care Needs and Quality of Life in Women with Breast Cancer: Randomized Controlled Trial

Objectives

Aimed to determine the effect of education provided with a mobile application on the supportive care needs and quality of life of women undergoing breast-conserving surgery.

Methods

The study was conducted in 81 patients. The experimental group received mobile application and the control group received standard education. Fisher's Exact Test, Chi-Square test, Student's t Test, Mann-Whitney U test, mixed design analysis of variance and Bonferroni-Dunn test were used to analyze the data.

Results

While the pre-study supportive care needs scores of the women were similar in the experimental (85.37 ± 23.58) and control (83.13 ± 23.03) groups, they decreased significantly in the experimental group at the 4th and 8th-week measurements (54.34 ± 27.28; 58.78 ± 16.51) (p < .05). In the 4th and 8th week measurements, the quality of life of the experimental group (72.26 ± 14.12; 71.04 ± 8.12) increased significantly, while no significant change was found in the control group (42.50 ± 14.38; 45.63 ± 8.28).

Conclusions

It was found that the supportive care needs of the decreased and their quality of life increased after the education given to women with a mobile application.

Implications for Nursing Practice

This study ensured that women who had a sufficiently intense and exhausting process during the cancer treatment process could comfortably receive care support and education with the mobile application at any time and place they wanted. It also revealed that nurses can provide care and education support to their patients at any time and place they want with the mobile application in their busy work tempo.