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Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Pain spans a broad spectrum of diseases and types that are highly prevalent and cause substantial disease burden for individuals and society. Up to 40% of people affected by pain receive no or inadequate treatment. Providing a scalable, time-, and location-independent way f...

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Autores principales: Terhorst, Yannik, Messner, Eva-Maria, Schultchen, Dana, Paganini, Sarah, Portenhauser, Alexandra, Eder, Anna-Sophia, Bauer, Melanie, Papenhoff, Mike, Baumeister, Harald, Sander, Lasse Bosse
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7933737/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33718002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2021.100376
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author Terhorst, Yannik
Messner, Eva-Maria
Schultchen, Dana
Paganini, Sarah
Portenhauser, Alexandra
Eder, Anna-Sophia
Bauer, Melanie
Papenhoff, Mike
Baumeister, Harald
Sander, Lasse Bosse
author_facet Terhorst, Yannik
Messner, Eva-Maria
Schultchen, Dana
Paganini, Sarah
Portenhauser, Alexandra
Eder, Anna-Sophia
Bauer, Melanie
Papenhoff, Mike
Baumeister, Harald
Sander, Lasse Bosse
author_sort Terhorst, Yannik
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Pain spans a broad spectrum of diseases and types that are highly prevalent and cause substantial disease burden for individuals and society. Up to 40% of people affected by pain receive no or inadequate treatment. Providing a scalable, time-, and location-independent way for pain diagnostic, management, prevention and treatment mobile health applications (MHA) might be a promising approach to improve health care for pain. However, the commercial app market is rapidly growing and unregulated, resulting in an opaque market. Studies investigating the content, privacy and security features, quality and scientific evidence of the available apps are highly needed, to guide patients and clinicians to high quality MHA. Contributing to this challenge, the present study investigates the content, quality, and privacy features of pain apps available in the European app stores. METHODS: An automated search engine was used to identify pain apps in the European Google Play and Apple App store. Pain apps were screened and checked for systematic criteria (pain-relatedness, functionality, availability, independent usability, English or German). Content, quality and privacy features were assessed by two independent reviewers using the German Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS-G). The MARS-G assesses quality on four objectives (engagement, functionality, aesthetics, information quality) and two subjective scales (perceived impact, subjective quality). RESULTS: Out of 1034 identified pain apps 218 were included. Pain apps covered eight different pain types. Content included basic information, advice, assessment and tracking, and stand-alone interventions. The overall quality of the pain apps was average M = 3.13 (SD = 0.56, min = 1, max = 4.69). The effectiveness of less than 1% of the included pain apps was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial. Major problems with data privacy were present: 59% provided no imprint, 70% had no visible privacy policy. CONCLUSION: A multitude of pain apps is available. Most MHA lack scientific evaluation and have serious privacy issues, posing a potential threat to users. Further research on evidence and improvements privacy and security are needed. Overall, the potential of pain apps is not exploited.
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spelling pubmed-79337372021-03-12 Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores Terhorst, Yannik Messner, Eva-Maria Schultchen, Dana Paganini, Sarah Portenhauser, Alexandra Eder, Anna-Sophia Bauer, Melanie Papenhoff, Mike Baumeister, Harald Sander, Lasse Bosse Internet Interv Full length Article BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Pain spans a broad spectrum of diseases and types that are highly prevalent and cause substantial disease burden for individuals and society. Up to 40% of people affected by pain receive no or inadequate treatment. Providing a scalable, time-, and location-independent way for pain diagnostic, management, prevention and treatment mobile health applications (MHA) might be a promising approach to improve health care for pain. However, the commercial app market is rapidly growing and unregulated, resulting in an opaque market. Studies investigating the content, privacy and security features, quality and scientific evidence of the available apps are highly needed, to guide patients and clinicians to high quality MHA. Contributing to this challenge, the present study investigates the content, quality, and privacy features of pain apps available in the European app stores. METHODS: An automated search engine was used to identify pain apps in the European Google Play and Apple App store. Pain apps were screened and checked for systematic criteria (pain-relatedness, functionality, availability, independent usability, English or German). Content, quality and privacy features were assessed by two independent reviewers using the German Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS-G). The MARS-G assesses quality on four objectives (engagement, functionality, aesthetics, information quality) and two subjective scales (perceived impact, subjective quality). RESULTS: Out of 1034 identified pain apps 218 were included. Pain apps covered eight different pain types. Content included basic information, advice, assessment and tracking, and stand-alone interventions. The overall quality of the pain apps was average M = 3.13 (SD = 0.56, min = 1, max = 4.69). The effectiveness of less than 1% of the included pain apps was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial. Major problems with data privacy were present: 59% provided no imprint, 70% had no visible privacy policy. CONCLUSION: A multitude of pain apps is available. Most MHA lack scientific evaluation and have serious privacy issues, posing a potential threat to users. Further research on evidence and improvements privacy and security are needed. Overall, the potential of pain apps is not exploited. Elsevier 2021-02-24 /pmc/articles/PMC7933737/ /pubmed/33718002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2021.100376 Text en © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Full length Article
Terhorst, Yannik
Messner, Eva-Maria
Schultchen, Dana
Paganini, Sarah
Portenhauser, Alexandra
Eder, Anna-Sophia
Bauer, Melanie
Papenhoff, Mike
Baumeister, Harald
Sander, Lasse Bosse
Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores
title Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores
title_full Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores
title_fullStr Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores
title_full_unstemmed Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores
title_short Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores
title_sort systematic evaluation of content and quality of english and german pain apps in european app stores
topic Full length Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7933737/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33718002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2021.100376
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