Key result
mHealth for CHF self-care draws high expectations from patients and providers despite resource barriers.
Why the study?
To explore the perceptions of patients, family caregivers, and health care professionals regarding mHealth for self-care among older adults with chronic heart failure in China.
Older patients, family caregivers, and health care professionals in China have high expectations for mHealth in heart failure self-care, emphasizing the need for diverse platforms and multiple functions while addressing barriers to use.
High expectations support multifunctional mHealth for HF self-care in China; leaves open optimal design and barrier mitigation before practice change.
AIM: To explore the perceptions of patients, family caregivers and health care professionals regarding mHealth for self-care among older adults with chronic heart failure in China. DESIGN: Descriptive qualitative study. METHODS: Purposive sampling was used, and face to face semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted between March 2021 and January 2022. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim, and the data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. DATA SOURCES: Five older patients, five family caregivers and 10 health care professionals in two cardiology wards of two hospitals. RESULTS: Four main themes were identified: mHealth is a promising way to improve the self-care of older adults with chronic heart failure, mHealth should have multiple functions, mHealth platforms could be diverse and there are some barriers to using mHealth. CONCLUSIONS: Older patients, family caregivers, and health care professionals expressed high expectations of mHealth. Functions include monitoring and analyzing physical indicators, communicating with health care professionals and providing health education via WeChat, applications, television and telephone. Concerns regarding the use of mHealth and shortages of human and financial resources have also been identified. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION OR PATIENT CARE: Considering the perceptions of older patients, family caregivers and health care professionals in developing and implementing mHealth-based interventions for improved patient self-care. IMPACT: This is one of the few studies to explore the perspectives of older patients, family caregivers and health care professionals regarding mHealth for self-care of chronic heart failure in China. This study emphasises the importance of considering multiple functions, the diversity of platforms, and the barriers to using mHealth when developing and implementing mHealth-based interventions. REPORTING METHOD: The SRQR guidelines were followed. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Patients, family caregivers and health care professionals were interviewed for this study.
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Chen et al. (2025) studied chronic heart failure (n=20). mHealth for self-care was evaluated on Perceptions regarding mHealth for self-care. Older patients, family caregivers, and health care professionals expressed high expectations for mHealth to improve self-care in chronic heart failure, though barriers and resource shortages exist.
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