Patient Experience on Oncological Treatments Assessed through the LifeCare Mobile Application: A Cross-Sectional Pilot Study

Resumo

Patient- reported experience measures (PREM) are essential for quality assessment in oncology care, often differing from clinician perceptions. Mobile health (mHealth) applications enable systematic capture of patient perspectives in routine practice. We assessed cancer patients' willingness to repeat oncological treatment and explored underlying reasons using the LifeCare mobile application in a cross- sectional pilot study of 16 users. Patients responded to: "Taking into account what has been explained to you about your disease and treatment, and your personal experience, would you undergo this treatment again?" (options: "No, never"; "Maybe"; "Yes, I would undergo this treatment again") with free- text justification. Natural language processing analyzed open responses. Median age was 56 years; 62.5% (10/16) female. Tumor distribution: breast 43.8% (n=7), colon 18.8% (n=3), lung 18.8% (n=3), others 18.8% (n=3). Overall, 62.5% (10/16) answered "Yes", 25.0% (4/16) "Maybe", 12.5% (2/16) "No, never". NLP identified six dominant themes for affirmative responses (disease control 40%, survival 20%), three for ambivalent responses, and three for negative responses (toxicity, disease progression). LifeCare enabled structured PREM capture revealing treatment acceptability determinants. Mobile health with NLP shows promise for scalable patient- centered oncology care.