SynthesisJournal of medical Internet research2024
Quality Assessment of Digital Health Apps: Umbrella Review.
Synthesis in Journal of medical Internet research, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 7 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Real-World Performance Measurement of Patient-Centered Clinical Decision Support Tools: Qualitative Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Pooled it
- Smartphone Apps for Cardiovascular and Mental Health Care: Digital Cross-Sectional Analysis.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2025Pooled it
- Determinants of mobile health application utilization in Lebanon: a cross-sectional study of perceptions, barriers, and engagement.BMC public health · 2026Article
- From product to knowledge: the life cycle of health technologies 2.0 as a framework for health system improvement.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Exploring Ethics: Understanding the Role of Privacy Policies and Institutional Review Boards in Digital Health Companies.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- On Acoustic Voice Quality Index measurement reliability in digital health applications: a narrative review and empirical evaluation of speech sample length requirements.Frontiers in digital health · 2025Article
- Heterogeneity of information across seven curated national or international digital health app repositories.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWith an increasing number of digital health apps available in app stores, it is important to assess these technologies reliably regarding their quality. This is done to mitigate the risks associated with their use. There are many different guidelines, methods, and metrics available to assess digital health apps with regard to their quality.
objectiveThis study aimed to give a holistic summary of the current methods and "condition agnostic" frameworks that are broadly applicable for the quality assessment of all digital health apps.
methodsA systematic search of literature was conducted on 4 databases: Scopus, PubMed, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore. We followed the PICOS (Population, Patient, or Problem; Intervention; Comparison; Outcomes; and Study Design) and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodologies when conducting this umbrella review. The search was conducted on January 26, 2024, for review articles published between 2018 and 2023. We identified 4781 candidate papers for inclusion; after title and abstract screening, 39 remained. After full-text analysis, we included 15 review articles in the full review.
resultsOf the 15 review articles, scoping reviews were the most common (n=6, 40%), followed by systematic reviews (n=4, 27%), narrative reviews (n=4, 27%), and a rapid review (n=1, 7%). A total of 4 (27%) review articles proposed assessment criteria for digital health apps. "Data privacy and/or security" was the most mentioned criterion (n=13, 87%) and "Cost" was the least mentioned criterion (n=1, 7%) for the assessment of digital health apps. The Mobile App Rating Scale was the most frequently used framework for quality assessment of digital health apps.
conclusionsThere is a lack of unity or consolidation across identified frameworks, as most do not meet all the identified criteria from the reviewed articles. Safety concerns associated with the use of digital health apps may be mitigated with the use of quality frameworks.
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.