Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Apr 18, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 20, 2018 - Aug 7, 2018
Date Accepted: Jan 26, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Quality of Blood Pressure Tracking Apps for the iPhone: Content Analysis and Evaluation of Adherence With Home Blood Pressure Measurement Best Practices
Background:
Blood pressure (BP) tracking apps may aid in hypertension (HTN) self-management, but app quality may be problematic.
Objective:
This study aimed to develop a content-dependent rating system for BP tracking apps and systematically evaluate BP tracking features, content-independent quality, functional characteristics, and educational comprehensiveness of English language iPhone apps developed with the primary purpose of tracking a consumer’s BP measurements.
Methods:
We created a 28-item checklist reflecting overall app quality and a simplified 2-item checklist to assess adherence with home BP monitoring best practices. Apps with educational information were evaluated for comprehensiveness on a 7-point scale and for consistency with evidence-based guidelines. Higher scores represent better quality and comprehensiveness. We searched the Canadian App Store on June 28, 2016, using the keywords hypertension and blood pressure. A total of 2 reviewers independently assessed apps according to the standardized template. We determined if paid apps, educational apps, or those rated ≥4 stars were of higher quality.
Results:
Of the 948 apps screened, 62 met the inclusion criteria. The mean overall quality score was 12.2 (SD 4.6, out of 28) and 6 apps (10%, 6/62) met the home BP monitoring best practice criteria. In all, 12 apps contained educational content (mean comprehensiveness 2.4, SD 1.6 out of 14), most commonly, background information on HTN. Apps with educational content (mean 15.1, SD 3.8 vs 11.8, SD 4.8; P=.03) or a ≥4 star rating (median 19, interquartile range [IQR] 15-20, vs 12, IQR 9-15; P=.02) had higher overall quality.
Conclusions:
The BP tracking apps reviewed had variable quality and few met the home BP monitoring best practice criteria. When deciding to recommend a specific BP tracking app, we suggest clinicians should evaluate whether the app allows input of duplicate BP readings in the morning and evening for at least seven days and presents the mean BP value for user-specified dates. Greater attention to home BP measurement best practices is required during app development.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.