Prostate cancer patients' perspectives of integrating mHealth and coaching in prostate cancer survivorship care.

Introduction & Objectives
Prostate cancer are, despite being a physical illness, associated with a significant psychosocial impact. Prostate cancer patients are for most of the time left to cope with the psychosocial wellbeing by themselves. Mobile Health (mHealth) and coaching-interventions have shown an effect in enhancing physical wellbeing. Integrating mHealth and coaching into the cancer survivorship care may be an effective strategy to improve the patients’ psychosocial wellbeing. The aim of our study was to explore prostate cancer patients’ perspectives of integrating mHealth and coaching, as part of the cancer survivorship care in the urology outpatient-clinic, Lillebaelt Hospital, Vejle, Denmark.

Materials & Methods
13 participants were provided with a mHealth device (7 with an IoT Bluetooth button connected to a web-platform and 6 with a smartwatch). The participants chose which topics to track, based on their own preferences (e.g. activity, pain or mood). The 13 participants was also a part of a 19-week coaching program. The coaching program included 8 coaching-sessions; 5 visit (60 min) and 3 telephone calls (30 min). The coaches were urological nurses that were trained in health-coaching, by a certified health-coach. Data were collected through 26 individual semi-structured interview with the participants. The interview focused on the patients’ experiences using the mHealth device and the psychosocial aspect of the coaching. The interviews were transcribed, and the text was analyzed using the inductive approach of Interpretive Description.

Results
All 13 participants completed the trial. The participants, who tracked via the IoT button stated that they did not find the button essential for the intervention. As one patient explains: "A push on a button cannot capture my wellbeing". The “smartwatch-group” were on the other hand, more satisfied with the use of the mHealth device, as a part of the intervention. A 78-year-old man described: ”I became more motivated to go for a walk, the fresh air and activity made me feel good, and I slept better at the night.” The interviews indicated that most of the participants were gratefully for the support from the nurse-coach. A patient expressed: "I have thought ‘what if´. But I don't feel like I can talk to my wife. She gets so upset. Now that I have had the opportunity to speak with the nurse, I actually feel like having unloaded something off my shoulders".

Conclusions
The study revealed that the participants with a smartwatch were more satisfied with the integrating of mHealth as a part of the care. In addition, the majority of the participants emphasized the importance of the health-coaching. Talking with the nurse-coach lead to a higher degree of wellbeing for the participants.