Mobile technology utilization among patients from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds attending cardiac rehabilitation

Background: Barriers to attending cardiac rehabilitation (CR), including cultural and linguistic differences, may be addressedby recent technological developments. However, the feasibility of using these approaches in culturally and linguistically diversepatients is yet to be determined.Objective: This study aims to assess the use of mobile technologies and features, as well as confidence in utilization acrosspatients speaking different languages at home (ie, English, Mandarin Chinese, and a language other than English and Mandarin[other]) and are both eligible and physically suitable for CR. In addition, the study aims to determine the sociodemographiccorrelates of the mobile technology/feature use, including language spoken at home in the three groups mentioned above.Methods: This is a descriptive, case matched, comparative study. Age and gender-matched patients speaking English, Mandarinand other languages (n=30/group) eligible for CR were surveyed for their mobile technology and mobile feature use.Results: ‘Participants had a mean age of 66.7 years (SD 13, n=90, range 46-95), with 53.3% (48/90) male. The majority (82/90,91.1%) used at least one technology device, with 87.8% (79/90) using mobile devices, the most common being smartphones(57/90, 63.3%), tablets (28/90, 31.1%), and text/voice-only phones (24/90, 26.7%). More English-speaking participants usedcomputers than Mandarin or “other” language speaking participants (P=.003 and .02) and were more confident in doing socompared to Mandarin-speaking participants (P=.003). More Mandarin-speaking participants used smartphones compared with“other” language speaking participants (P=.03). Most commonly used mobile features were voice calls (77/82, 93.9%), textmessage (54/82, 65.9%), the internet (39/82, 47.6%), email (36/82, 43.9%), and videoconferencing (Skype or FaceTime [WeChator QQ] 35/82, 42.7%). Less Mandarin-speaking participants used emails (P=.001) and social media (P=.007) than English-speakingparticipants. Speaking Mandarin was independently associated with using smartphone, emails, and accessing the web-basedmedication information (OR 7.238, 95% CI 1.262-41.522; P=.03, OR 0.089, 95% CI 0.016-0.490; P=.006 and OR 0.191, 95%CI 0.037-0.984; P=.05).Conclusions: This study reveals a high usage of mobile technology among CR patients and provides further insights intodifferences in the technology use across CALD patients in Australia. The findings of this study may inform the design andimplementation of future technology-based CR.