ReviewJMIR mHealth and uHealth2021
Identification and Evaluation of Methodologies to Assess the Quality of Mobile Health Apps in High-, Low-, and Middle-Income Countries: Rapid Review.
Review in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Quality Assessment of Digital Health Apps: Umbrella Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Pooled it
- A Transferable Evaluation Framework for Mobile Health Data Collection in Shift-Work Nurses: Development and Feasibility Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Development of S-IMCICA_V.2: A User-Centered Educational and Decision-Support mHealth App for Early Detection of Childhood Cancer.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2026Article
- Quality and Privacy Policy Compliance of Mental Health Care Apps in China: Cross-Sectional Evaluation Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Persian adaptation and validation of the user version of The Mobile Application Rating Scale (uMARS).PloS one · 2025Article
- Challenges and Alternatives to Evaluation Methods and Regulation Approaches for Medical Apps as Mobile Medical Devices: International and Multidisciplinary Focus Group Discussion.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Clinical Validation of Digital Healthcare Solutions: State of the Art, Challenges and Opportunities.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Quality of Digital Health Interventions Across Different Health Care Domains: Secondary Data Analysis Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2023Article
- Assessing the Quality and Impact of eHealth Tools: Systematic Literature Review and Narrative Synthesis.JMIR human factors · 2023Review
- Framework to assess the quality of mHealth apps: a mixed-method international case study protocol.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Modification and Validation of an mHealth App Quality Assessment Methodology for International Use: Cross-sectional and eDelphi Studies.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- Optimization of the Chronic Kidney Disease-Peritoneal Dialysis App to Improve Care for Patients on Peritoneal Dialysis in Northeast Thailand: User-Centered Design Study.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- Mobile Health Apps Providing Information on Drugs for Adult Emergency Care: Systematic Search on App Stores and Content Analysis.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2022Review
- Toward a digital citizen lab for capturing data about alternative ways of self-managing chronic pain: An attitudinal user study.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences · 2022Article
- Implementing a mHealth-Based Patient and Nurse Educational Program to Reduce Wound Infection in Rural Philippines.Annals of global health · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn recent years, there has been rapid growth in the availability and use of mobile health (mHealth) apps around the world. A consensus regarding an accepted standard to assess the quality of such apps has yet to be reached. A factor that exacerbates the challenge of mHealth app quality assessment is variations in the interpretation of quality and its subdimensions. Consequently, it has become increasingly difficult for health care professionals worldwide to distinguish apps of high quality from those of lower quality. This exposes both patients and health care professionals to unnecessary risks. Despite progress, limited understanding of the contributions of researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) exists on this topic. Furthermore, the applicability of quality assessment methodologies in LMIC settings remains relatively unexplored.
objectiveThis rapid review aims to identify current methodologies in the literature to assess the quality of mHealth apps, understand what aspects of quality these methodologies address, determine what input has been made by authors from LMICs, and examine the applicability of such methodologies in LMICs.
methodsThis review was registered with PROSPERO (International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews). A search of PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Scopus was performed for papers related to mHealth app quality assessment methodologies, which were published in English between 2005 and 2020. By taking a rapid review approach, a thematic and descriptive analysis of the papers was performed.
resultsElectronic database searches identified 841 papers. After the screening process, 52 papers remained for inclusion. Of the 52 papers, 5 (10%) proposed novel methodologies that could be used to evaluate mHealth apps of diverse medical areas of interest, 8 (15%) proposed methodologies that could be used to assess apps concerned with a specific medical focus, and 39 (75%) used methodologies developed by other published authors to evaluate the quality of various groups of mHealth apps. The authors in 6% (3/52) of papers were solely affiliated to institutes in LMICs. A further 15% (8/52) of papers had at least one coauthor affiliated to an institute in an LMIC.
conclusionsQuality assessment of mHealth apps is complex in nature and at times subjective. Despite growing research on this topic, to date, an all-encompassing appropriate means for evaluating the quality of mHealth apps does not exist. There has been engagement with authors affiliated to institutes across LMICs; however, limited consideration of current generic methodologies for application in LMIC settings has been identified.
trial registrationPROSPERO CRD42020205149; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=205149.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.