Clinical Research Case Report

Abstract

Introduction: Severe mental illnesses (SMIs) cause significant disability in the patients and burden in the families, especially in women patients and their women caregivers. Mobile technologies have been used in SMIs, mostly in high income countries with focus on self-usage and self-management by patient. In low resource settings, family caregivers, mostly women remain main provider of psychosocial interventions.

Aim: The present research was planned to study the mobile phone usage pattern, mobile phone technologies used and acceptability of mobile phone usage in women caregivers.

Methodology: This study was part of an on-going collaborative research project for developing a mobile based framework for SMIs, being carried out by a general hospital psychiatric unit and an informational technology institute. All the patients, aged 18 – 60 years, admitted or in follow-up in the department of psychiatry at our hospital from October 2015 to March 2016, were screened for SMIs, defined as having schizophrenia and related disorders and bipolar disorders (ICD-10) of more than two years duration. Consenting primary caregivers of screened patients, aged 18-60years were assessed on a semi structured questionnaire containing items on mobile phone usage, technical specifications of phone, current usage and willingness to use mobile phone apps as an aid for caregiving. Ethics clearance from Institute Ethics Committee was obtained.

Results: A total of 36 women caregivers were included in the study; 19 were mothers, 16 were wives and one was daughter of the patient. All except one were married, two third were housewives and were educated up to eighth standard. All of them except one owned a phone; 43.3% owned a smart phone. 57.1%, 11.4% and 5.7% had a phone with functionality of camera, GPS and sensor respectively. Mobile phone was used mainly for making calls and sms,. It was also used for internet, facebook, shopping and accessing mail by varying number of subjects depending on the facilities available. Only 17.1% had accessed internet on phone and 17.7% knew how to download an app and 5.6% had used the phone for accessing health related information and booking an appointment with health care provider. However, when questions related to future usage were asked, most of them answered in affirmative. Most of them were willing to receive sms, to keep a track of their patient’s condition, download an app to monitor patient’s health, willing to use it daily. 80% of them reported that such app will be helpful in caregiving activities and 91. 2 % reported that it will not add to burden of caregiving.

Conclusion: Most of the women caregivers of patients with SMIs use mobile phone in low resource settings. Currently about one fourth of them use one or other smart phone functions. However, about 90% of them are willing to use mobile phone based apps in the care of their patients.