Impact of a mobile application-based home care nursing program on patients' quality of life and family burden.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify the effectiveness of a mobile application-based home care nursing service in improving patient quality of life and healthy lifestyle and reducing the family burden.

METHODS: This study was a clinical trial with a pre- and post-test control group design. The accessible population in this study was post-discharge patients from general hospitals in West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan, Indonesia, who required home care nursing. We allocated a selected sample of 40 people to the intervention group and 40 people to the control group using a randomized block design. We gave mobile application-based home care nursing to the intervention group and community health nursing care to the control group. This study was conducted in 10 months (January-October 2022). We measure the patient quality of life, healthy lifestyle, and family burden before and 3 months after the intervention.

RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the post-test quality of life between the two groups (p =  0.187), but there was a significant difference in the psychological (p =  0.014) and environmental health (p =  0.021) domain of quality of life. There was no significant difference in the post-test of a healthy lifestyle between the two groups (p =  0.083). There was a significant difference in the post-test family burden between the two groups (p =  0.015).

CONCLUSION: Mobile Application-Based Home Care Nursing is effective in improving patient quality of life in the psychological and environmental health domains and reducing the family burden for post-discharge patients.