Development of a Mobile Application for Living Liver Donors to Assist their Understandings of a Series of Preoperative Tests

Abstract

Background Although a number of mobile applications for health promotion has been developed, the use of such tools in serious medical conditions is limited. Living liver donor candidates make an important decision to be an organ donor, based on their understandings of the donor evaluation process and operation. We developed a web-based application that is available for both smartphones and tablets, aiming to assist donors’ understandings of a series of preoperative tests as well as to reduce their anxiety. Methods The developed mobile application can be accessed through a user-unique web page. A list of preoperative tests is shown with icons, and a brief explanation for each test is available in the sub-page followed by clicking the respective icon. The progress of the evaluation process can be easily recognized with the colors of the icons. Questionnaires were returned before and after the usage of the web-based mobile application. Results Among 56 donors screened, 45 agreed to enter the study, and 31 donors replied questionnaires before and after the usage of the web-based application. The median age was 35 (range 21 – 65) years, and 10 (32%) were male. Their intended graft recipients were parents in 15 (48%), spouses in 6 (18%), children in 6 (18%), and siblings in 4 (13%). After conventional verbal informed consent, donor candidates answered that they remembered information on preoperative tests (n=18, 58%), donor operation (n=25, 86%), complications (n=18, 58%), length of hospital stay (n=21, 68%), and cost (n=14, 45%). Twenty-nine of the enrolled donors (94%) actually used the web-based application; 27 used the web-based application during receiving medical tests in the hospital, and 21 used it on their smartphones at home. Before using the web-based application, all donors answered that they understood about the purpose and process of preoperative tests. The proportion of favorable responses remained the same after the use of the web-based application, even though entering to the current study took extra time. After the usage, 71% of enrolled donors recommended using the web-based application to future donor candidates. Conclusions The web-based mobile application was well accepted by the living liver donor candidates and potentially helped them understand the donor evaluation process and reduce anxiety. This work was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI 17H04095.