Abstract: Objective: To develop the symptom management module in the support APP for parents of children with leukemia, and evaluate its usability. Methods: The parents and medical staff of children with leukemia were interviewed to understand the symptom management items suitable for parents to participate in, patients' need of support when participating in symptom management, and their expectation for functions of the module in the support APP. Later a knowledge base of images and texts pertaining to the symptom management module was constructed to set up the symptom management module in cooperation with software engineers to realize the corresponding functions, after which formative usability evaluation and summative usability evaluation were carried out for the module. Results: The knowledge base relevant to 41 physiological symptoms and 6 psychological symptoms was formed to establish the symptom management module of the support APP for parents of children with leukemia, offering not only active search and browsing of symptom management information, but also symptom management information recommendation based on self-reported symptom assessment results and symptom management information recommendation based on hybrid recommendation. The usability evaluation of the symptom management module demonstrated satisfying results. Conclusion: This study has developed the symptom management module in the support APP for parents of children with leukemia, whose functions meet well the needs of those parents. The module with good usability can provide support for parents to participate in the symptom management of their children.

Key words: leukemia; mobile health; symptom management; intelligent recommendation; wise information technology of nursing