The treatment outcome largely depends on breast cancer’s timely detection and hence the national health systems throughout Europe have adopted the EU’s recommendations on breast cancer screening. However, women’s adherence to these screenings programmes remains relatively poor with the EU average attendance being below the standard acceptable level that is 70%. Caregiving of a person with a chronic disease can also be a contributing factor to poor screening adherence. The project aims to develop a mobile phone-based health intervention, as a means to enhance preventive health care behavior among informal carers population with tailored individual messages, covering broad content areas while also overcoming restrictions to place and time of delivery. The specific objectives of the project are:(1)to create a methodology and relevant contents extending informal carers’ knowledge regarding the impact of their prevention avoidance behavior on BC development, (2) to educate and enhancing them in order to assume control over this disease through adopting and maintaining changes in their lifestyle and living practices,(3)to develop a personalized mobile application(i.e. personal characteristics, needs and preferences),which will support informal carers to better manage self-care and behaviour change in disease prevention, and (4) to develop a handbook for educators, how to use the app in health-literacy reinforcement programmes. The main target group will be female informal carers. According to the project in each country at least one focus group involving a minimum of 6 carers (for a total of 18) and at least one piloting of the training and the App involving a minimum of 10 carers (for a total of 30) will be organized. Partner organisations will offer the opportunity to those interested to subscribe on the event list of the project directly or electronically without discrimination until the completion of all available places. Carers already involved in the partners organisations ongoing activities will be invited to participate, as well. The main activities of the project include the development of an innovative mobile application through a rigorous methodological approach, which will support informal carers to better manage self-care and behaviour change in breast cancer prevention. Furthermore, the activities will include the development of a handbook for educators on how to use the app in health-literacy reinforcement programmes. In terms of the methodological approach, this project intends to apply the Fogg Behavioral Model (FBM), which has originated from persuasive technology, to overcome attitudinal and behavioral barriers to screening. The principles of FBM, which have become commonly employed in preventive health care, were utilized to increase self-efficacy and steer a process of change. The FBM will guide the design and development of the project’s intervention in first identifying barriers, then creating customized motivators, and finally providing timely triggers. Moreover, the health belief model (HBM) will be used to provide direction on uncovering the factors, such as perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to actions, and level of self-efficacy, to facilitate change for the informal carers. The results will include the development of an innovative application that will be simple, user friendly for monitoring the consistency of self-breast examination and mammography, as well as presenting pedagogical material and relevant information concisely and with clarity. Furthermore the app will enhance the connection among people in common situations, through a specific forum and a limited group of friends that will empower the self-examination. Additionally, we will develop a training tool for educators to support the application of the app in health-literacy reinforcement programmes. The project’s envisaged impact will be to educate, adequately prepare, empower and promote breast cancer screening among informal carers reducing the breast cancer burden in this target group. The impact will reflect on the partners and relevant stakeholders and on local, national and European level. The sustainability will be ensured through the integration of the app and training tool in existing and newly developed training opportunities already offered by partners to carers. This means that, once the methodology will be developed and trainers from partners organizations will be able to offer the training, the project could be sustained with their current source of financing, such as funding from local and national governments; inter-professional funds and funds from private service providers for their employees. Additionally, the innovative methodology developed in the project is expected to increase the audience that could potentially be involved, thus allowing partner organizations to access more funding resources.
The project PROLEPSIS aimed to developed a mobile phone-based health intervention, as a means to enhance preventive health care behavior among Informal Carers (ICs) population with tailored individual messages, covering broad content areas while also overcoming restrictions to place and time of delivery. The project achieved the following results: - Creation of an e-health educational program and relevant contents (videos presentations, worksheets, group activities, quizzes), which enables participants to increase their knowledge of breast cancer and the importance of prevention, and provides them with the skills to self-manage their own health monitoring, through the use of the Prolepsis App. - Developed a personalized mobile application tool for ICs (i.e. personal characteristics, needs and preferences), which will support them to better manage self-care and reinforce positive behaviors and encourage the use of regular preventive services in the context of early detection of breast cancer - Creation of a handbook for educators, how to use the app in health-literacy reinforcement programs.
European guidelines are in place for the provision of mammography screening for the early detection of breast cancer, although women, for various reasons (e.g. lack of knowledge, limited health literacy) do not attend these screenings as expected despite their awareness on the availability of preventive cancer screening tests. Women who assume the role of the informal carer face additional challenges in engaging in health promotion practices such as Breast Cancer (BC) screening. Explicitly, studies on caregivers’ health behaviours stress the presence of impaired health behaviours, such as neglecting health care appointments, eating a poor-quality diet, limited exercise time and forgetting to take prescribed medications, compared to non-caregivers.The female informal carers as a susceptible group to poor BC screening adherence and limited adoption of health promotion behaviours were consisted the main target group of the project. The new mobile app is highly accessible and socially inclusive technological tool that transcended socioeconomic, geographical, language, cultural barriers and health beliefs. Additionally to informal carers, the new tool will also benefit the practicing health professionals who will be provided with an enhanced tool for their clinical/community practice and, for every woman to help her to increase their knowledge about BC and screening methods.