Dealing with Loved Ones’ Addiction: Development of an App to Cope with Caregivers’ Stress

Caregivers remain the primary source of attachment, nurturing, and socialization for human beings in our current society. Family caregivers provide 11 to 100 h of care per week to their loved ones, including emotional and social support, assistance with transportation, home care, and so on. However, caregivers find the workload challenging due to fatigue, burnout, depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances, and sometimes also from an excessive burden. Caregiver burden and stress ultimately negatively affect family members and caregivers. The caregiver is then at risk of developing deleterious physical, psychological, social, and emotional problems such as mood and anxiety disorders. Mobile health applications (mHealth applications) can be a solution to help family caregivers care for their loved ones and also for themselves. In this study, we present the development of an mHealth application for caregivers of persons with substance use and tested its usability. We used a user-centered design and intervention (UCDI) approach to develop the app by conducting a focus group with parents of individuals with addiction problems. Four key themes were identified during the focus group: (i) information section, (ii) self-care section, (iii) how-to: stress-reduction section, and (iv) chat section. The final app was developed with the software vendor and divided into several sections that were useful for managing psychological problems (such as stress or anxiety), informing about addiction and behavioral dependency problems, and helping users find a professional or services nearby. An analysis of the results of a usability test related to the app administered to a subsample of the focus group showed that the app provided ease of use, usefulness, and satisfaction.