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)
Evaluation of the Quality of Blood Pressure Tracking Applications for the iPhone: Consistency with Home Blood Pressure Measurement Best Practices
ABSTRACT
Background:
Blood pressure [BP] tracking apps may aid in hypertension self-management but app quality may be problematic.
Objective:
To develop a content-dependent rating system and review characteristics, tracking features, content-independent quality, and educational comprehensiveness of English language BP tracking apps for the iPhone.
Methods:
We created a 28-item checklist reflecting overall app quality, and a simplified 2-item checklist to assess consistency with home BP monitoring best practices. We searched the Canadian App Store on June 28th, 2016 using the keywords “hypertension” and “blood pressure.” Two reviewers independently assessed apps according to the standardized template. 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 determined if paid apps, educational apps, or those rated ≥4 stars were of higher quality.
Results:
Of 948 apps screened, 62 met the inclusion criteria. The mean overall quality was 12.2±4.6 and 6 apps (10 %) met BP monitoring best practice criteria. Twelve apps contained educational content (mean comprehensiveness: 2.3±1.6) most commonly, background information on hypertension. Apps with educational content [15.1±3.8 vs. 11.8±4.8 P=0.03] or a ≥4 star rating [17.4±3.6 vs. 12.0±4.6 p= 0.01] had higher overall quality.
Conclusions:
The included apps had variable quality. When deciding to recommend a specific BP tracking app, we suggest clinicians evaluate if the app allows input of duplicate BP readings for at least 7 days and presents the mean BP value for user specified dates. Greater attention to home BP measurement best practices is required during app development. Clinical Trial: Not Applicable
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.