Evaluation of a Mobile App to Promote Social Support for Oncology Patients

a. Investigators will measure the relative changes in functional status of cancer patients using the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G) questionnaire. FACT-G is a 27-item questionnaire asking participants to report the four primary QoL domains, including physical, social/family, emotional and functional well-being on a 5-point Likert scale where 0 = Not at all to 4 = Very much with higher scores representing better general QoL.

a. Investigators will measure differences in quality of life between the two study arms with the SF-12 instrument. The SF-12 is a multipurpose short form survey with 12 questions, all selected from the SF-36 Health Survey. SF-12 is a standardized self-report questionnaire that assesses mental and physical functioning. The SF-12 consists of 12 items with a Likert-type response format that measures quality of life with a Physical Component Summary (PCS) and Mental Component Summary (MCS). Subscales associated with the PCS include physical functioning, role limitations due to physical problems, bodily pain, and general health perceptions. Subscales associated with the MCS include vitality (energy and fatigue), social functioning, role limitations due to emotional problems, and mental health. A scoring algorithm is used to generate a total score for each component ranging from 0 to 100. Low values represent a poor health state while high values represent a good health state.

Changes in the caregiver's burden assessed using the 10-item Caregiver Quality of Life - Cancer Scale (CQOLC) Burden Subscale, where higher scores indicate greater burden.

Changes in the caregiver's disruptiveness of daily life will be assessed using the 7-item CQOLC Disruptiveness Subscale, where scores are calculated as described for burden, and higher scores indicate greater disruptiveness.