The last decade has boosted the advancement of mobile applications. Health-related digital tools have also undergone exponential growth.
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes mobile health (mHealth) as the "spread of mobile technologies as well as advancements in their innovative application to address health priorities.”
The development of applications for the management of chronic diseases presents many challenges, not only for the creators but also for physicians, legislators and health authorities and, of course, for patients.
Canadian researchers from Women's College Hospital and other institutes and universities developed a scoping review that aimed to "aims to synthesize the emerging field of mobile health app quality assessment by reviewing criteria used by previous studies to assess the quality of mobile apps for chronic disease management."
The initial search resulted in more than 8,400 citations, and ultimately only 65 articles were included. Although the search framework starts from 2001, the first relevant study was produced in 2010. As for the applications used in these studies "Most explored apps related to diabetes mellitus management (24.6%, n = 16), weight management (15.4%, n = 10), mental health (10.8%, n = 7), and smoking cessation (10.8%, n = 7)."
And the countries where the most studies were conducted were the United States (41.5%, n = 27), United Kingdom (13.9%, n = 9) and Australia (10.8%, n = 7). Most studies were conducted in English (87.7%, n = 57).
Continue reading at the following link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-021-00410-x
