A mobile application for following daily life and social activities of schizophrenic patients

Objective: Daily life and social activities of schizophrenic patients are important because these activities both help the patients getting better and they are also indicator of being functional for the patients. Traditionally, these activities are recorded on paper based media. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of a mobile application which records the activities of the patients. Method: We have developed a hybrid Android OS application which is used for recording daily activities of the patients, reminds the required activities and medications, follows up medication usage, and permits the physican to view this data in a separate doctor panel. Clinical evaluation and pshyciatric tests of the patients were performed before and after the study. After usability study, the application was used by 14 patients. We evaluated the data of 12 patients who completed the study. Results: We had no technical problems during the study. Twelve users recorded a total of 1901 activities in one month. Average data entry per day is 5,1 for each patient. They used the application minimum 22, maximum 388 times in a month. We observed no statistically significant changes between pre and post PANSS, CGI, Lawton&Brody instrumental activities of daily living, Functional Remission of General Schizophrenia (FROGS) Scale, or Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living. We observed statistically significant changes in two sub-scales, one in a positive, one in a negative way, however it is difficult to link these differences to use of application, due to low usage of the application. There are negative correlations between number of use of the application and PANNS Positive scale, PANNS Total, and CGI. There are positive correlations between number of use of the application and FROGS total and FROGS daily life. Conclusion: We had no technical problems during the study, however we observed a problem of frequency of use of the application. The methods to increase the number of use must be investigated. Key Words: Mobile application; Social activities; Schizophrenia; patient follow-up; Social isolation