CanDi - Empowering Cancer Patients on Healthy Dietary Choices and Managing Side Effects during Treatment

In this new era of Industrial Revolution 4.0, smartphone apps have been widely used in many daily life activities. They have been extensively utilized to assess, monitor and implement health promotion and intervention. They are considered effective and practical in providing information to communities. Nevertheless, a suitable and effective diet and disease-related app that focuses on our local communities are still scarce especially for cancer patients and survivors who commonly suffer from poor nutritional status due to increased energy needs and reduced intake related to disease state or treatment side-effects. Therefore, we aimed to provide educational advice on recommended food intake, types, nutritional qualities and weight management for cancer patients and survivors with appetite problems and nutritional deficits using a practical smartphone app.

The Cancer Dietary (CanDi™) app was developed as a convenient, flexible and attractively engaging smartphone app containing healthy tips which are uniquely tailored to the local food choices, preferences and ingredients. This helps customize users’ dietary requirements besides permitting real-time information up-dating. Features are broadly categorized into Healthy Eating Guide (healthy eating for eating problems, weight loss prevention and increasing proteins and calories intake) and Malaysian Recipes for Cancer Patients (common Malaysian dishes, ingredients, treatment-based recipes, and special diets). An additional Symptom Diary allows the user’s personal profile to be recorded and stored virtually online. CanDi™ was tested among 30 cancer patients, family caregivers and dietitians recruited from a public hospital in Terengganu, Malaysia. The feasibility and acceptability regarding its ease of operation, the suitability of language used, attractiveness, knowledge enhancement and perceived usefulness were reported as good (> 80%) and excellent (> 90%), respectively. This smart and innovative yet practical app could beneficially assist cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers in their routine dietary habits related to cancer conditions for a healthy living.