ReviewLife (Basel, Switzerland)2024
The Efficacy of the Smartphone App for the Self-Management of Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review and Assessment of Their Quality through the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) in Italy.
Review in Life (Basel, Switzerland), 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 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
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Cost-effectiveness of artificial intelligence interventions for musculoskeletal disorders of the spine: a systematic review.Rheumatology international · 2026Pooled it
- Contributors to Adherence to Exercise Therapy in Non-Specific Chronic Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review of Qualitative and Quantitative Research.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Reviewing Mobile Apps for Teaching Human Anatomy: Search and Quality Evaluation Study.JMIR medical education · 2025Article
- Quality Evaluating Mobile Health Apps for Oral Hygiene Management Using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS): A Systematic Review of Smartphone App Markets.Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran · 2025Review
- Short-term variability of chronic musculoskeletal pain.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Smartphone apps for self-management are valuable tools to help manage low back pain (LBP) patients. The purposes of this systematic review were to (a) summarize the available studies on the efficacy of smartphone apps for self-management of LBP and (b) identify free applications available in Italy that offer strategies for LBP self-management and provide a qualitative assessment using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS). According to the Prisma Checklist, six bibliographic databases were searched with the keywords 'low back pain', 'mobile application', 'smartphone', and 'telemedicine'. In total, 852 records were screened, and 16 were included in the systematic review. Of the six RCTs included, four reported a statistically significant decrease in pain in favor of the app group, and two RCTs did not. Only in a non-RCT was there an increase in the disability score. In the application research conducted on mobile stores, we identified and rated 25 applications through MARS. The overall scores ranged from 1.93 to 3.92 for the IOS app and 1.73 to 4.25 for the Play Store app. The findings suggest that few apps meet satisfying quality, content, and functionality criteria for LBP self-management.
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.