Developing a Mobile Application for Stroke Caregivers (S6.004)

Objective: Assessing stroke caregivers opinions about mobile applications. Background: Informal caregivers have to assume multiple responsibilities, which can result in stress, especially when their own needs are inadequately addressed during a patient’s recovery Design/Methods: A nationwide survey of 17 questions was mailed to 11,720 stroke survivors through the National Stroke Association with a cover letter asking them to give the IRB approved consent and survey to their informal caregiver if applicable. The survey included demographic questions, caregiver’s opinion about what resources in a mobile app (if any) would be useful, and if they own a phone/smart phone. Five of the questions specifically asked about “scheduling multiple tasks,” “finding information about resources for stroke,” “finding local resources,” “tracking fitness and diet,” and “communication with their stroke survivor.” The survey was developed using multiple focus groups in 2 states. For all questions a logistic regression was run to determine if there were racial, gender or age disparities. Results: 396 stroke caregivers [(299 (76%) female, 96 (24%) African-American, 42 (11%) Hispanic/Latino, and 210 (53%) Caucasian], aged 20 to 99 years (mean of 59.5 ± 13.3) returned surveys. An app for scheduling doctor/rehab appointments (69%), links to trustworthy medical information (68%), stroke support groups in their area (60%), exercises (56%), and a touch screen with useful phrases (52%) for the stroke survivor to use was found to be most useful independent of race, gender, age and smartphone owners (p >.05). When examining if the 5 aspects of the app (outlined above) would be useful or not, Latino caregivers descriptively reported the highest rate of usefulness (88%–74% across the 5 aspects) along with African-American caregivers’ (84%–77%). Conclusions: Implementation of a mobile app unique to stroke caregivers with multiple resources is desired by this diverse caregiver sample, and holds potential to reduce the gap for resource use in minority populations. Study Supported by: N/A Disclosure: Dr. Singer has nothing to disclose. Dr. Weingast has nothing to disclose. Dr. Stefanov has nothing to disclose. Dr. Gilles has nothing to disclose. Dr. Girouard has nothing to disclose. Dr. Faysel has nothing to disclose. Dr. Conigliaro has nothing to disclose. Dr. Fraser-White has nothing to disclose. Dr. Jensen has nothing to disclose. Dr. Burton has nothing to disclose. Dr. Levine has nothing to disclose.