A Reminder App to Improve Physical Activity During Radiotherapy for Lung Cancer - a Pre-study in Healthy Volunteers

Physical activity prior to and during chemo- and/or immunotherapy for lung cancer appears important. This may also be true for patients with lung cancer treated with radiation therapy. However, adherence to an exercise program sometimes may be challenging for the patients, particularly if they experience fatigue or other adverse events. The question arose whether an easy-to-use mobile app installed on the patient's smart phone reminding patients several times daily to perform a certain number of steps will have a positive effect on their physical activity during a course of radiation therapy. Such an app has been developed within the Interreg project HeAT (Health Advancing Technologies for Elderly). However, before this app can be tested in a prospective trial involving patients, its usability should to be evaluated by healthy volunteers. In the present prospective study, 30 healthy volunteers test and rate ten aspects related to the usability of the app. The healthy volunteers have to download a reminder app, which has been designed by the Lübeck based company Nextlabel Offene Handelsgesellschaft (OHG). After receiving the link for the download of the app from Nextlabel OHG by e-mail, the participants are asked to test the app and complete a questionnaire. They are asked to affirm or negate ten statements in three sections (download and installation, navigation, and content/functions) regarding the usability of the reminder app. The satisfaction rate represents the rate of participants who affirmed a statement. If this rate was \<60%, the reminder app was rated as not being useful. If the rate was between ≥60% but \<80%, the app was regarded useful but required further optimization regarding the corresponding section. In addition, iPhone and Android users are compared with respect to the satisfaction rates.