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Mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: A systematic review

The use of substandard and counterfeit medicines (SCM) leads to significant health and economic consequences, like treatment failure, rise of antimicrobial resistance, extra expenditures of individuals or households and serious adverse drug reactions including death. Our objective was to systematica...

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Autores principales: Ciapponi, Agustín, Donato, Manuel, Gülmezoglu, A. Metin, Alconada, Tomás, Bardach, Ariel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7861418/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33539433
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246061
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author Ciapponi, Agustín
Donato, Manuel
Gülmezoglu, A. Metin
Alconada, Tomás
Bardach, Ariel
author_facet Ciapponi, Agustín
Donato, Manuel
Gülmezoglu, A. Metin
Alconada, Tomás
Bardach, Ariel
author_sort Ciapponi, Agustín
collection PubMed
description The use of substandard and counterfeit medicines (SCM) leads to significant health and economic consequences, like treatment failure, rise of antimicrobial resistance, extra expenditures of individuals or households and serious adverse drug reactions including death. Our objective was to systematically search, identify and compare relevant available mobile applications (apps) for smartphones and tablets, which use could potentially affect clinical and public health outcomes. We carried out a systematic review of the literature in January 2020, including major medical databases, and app stores. We used the validated Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) to assess the quality of apps, (1 worst score, 3 acceptable score, and 5 best score). We planned to evaluate the accuracy of the mobile apps to detect SCM. We retrieved 335 references through medical databases and 42 from Apple, Google stores and Google Scholar. We finally included two studies of the medical database, 25 apps (eight from the App Store, eight from Google Play, eight from both stores, and one from Google Scholar), and 16 websites. We only found one report on the accuracy of a mobile apps detecting SCMs. Most apps use the imprint, color or shape for pill identification, and only a few offer pill detection through photographs or bar code. The MARS mean score for the apps was 3.17 (acceptable), with a maximum of 4.9 and a minimum of 1.1. The ‘functionality’ dimension resulted in the highest mean score (3.4), while the ‘engagement’ and ‘information’ dimensions showed the lowest one (3.0). In conclusion, we found a remarkable evidence gap about the accuracy of mobile apps in detecting SCMs. However, mobile apps could potentially be useful to screen for SCM by assessing the physical characteristics of pills, although this should still be assessed in properly designed research studies.
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spelling pubmed-78614182021-02-12 Mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: A systematic review Ciapponi, Agustín Donato, Manuel Gülmezoglu, A. Metin Alconada, Tomás Bardach, Ariel PLoS One Research Article The use of substandard and counterfeit medicines (SCM) leads to significant health and economic consequences, like treatment failure, rise of antimicrobial resistance, extra expenditures of individuals or households and serious adverse drug reactions including death. Our objective was to systematically search, identify and compare relevant available mobile applications (apps) for smartphones and tablets, which use could potentially affect clinical and public health outcomes. We carried out a systematic review of the literature in January 2020, including major medical databases, and app stores. We used the validated Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) to assess the quality of apps, (1 worst score, 3 acceptable score, and 5 best score). We planned to evaluate the accuracy of the mobile apps to detect SCM. We retrieved 335 references through medical databases and 42 from Apple, Google stores and Google Scholar. We finally included two studies of the medical database, 25 apps (eight from the App Store, eight from Google Play, eight from both stores, and one from Google Scholar), and 16 websites. We only found one report on the accuracy of a mobile apps detecting SCMs. Most apps use the imprint, color or shape for pill identification, and only a few offer pill detection through photographs or bar code. The MARS mean score for the apps was 3.17 (acceptable), with a maximum of 4.9 and a minimum of 1.1. The ‘functionality’ dimension resulted in the highest mean score (3.4), while the ‘engagement’ and ‘information’ dimensions showed the lowest one (3.0). In conclusion, we found a remarkable evidence gap about the accuracy of mobile apps in detecting SCMs. However, mobile apps could potentially be useful to screen for SCM by assessing the physical characteristics of pills, although this should still be assessed in properly designed research studies. Public Library of Science 2021-02-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7861418/ /pubmed/33539433 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246061 Text en © 2021 Ciapponi et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ciapponi, Agustín
Donato, Manuel
Gülmezoglu, A. Metin
Alconada, Tomás
Bardach, Ariel
Mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: A systematic review
title Mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: A systematic review
title_full Mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: A systematic review
title_fullStr Mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: A systematic review
title_full_unstemmed Mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: A systematic review
title_short Mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: A systematic review
title_sort mobile apps for detecting falsified and substandard drugs: a systematic review
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7861418/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33539433
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246061
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