Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: May 17, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: May 21, 2019 - Jul 16, 2019
Date Accepted: Aug 30, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Evaluation of Mobile Apps Targeted to Patients with Spondyloarthritis for Disease Monitoring: Systematic App Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
There are many apps developed for patients with Spondyloarthritis in the market, but they are not objectively evaluated for their purposes and quality.
Objective:
To identify and evaluate existing publicly available, high-quality apps for monitoring Spondyloarthritis disease activity that use validated measurement instruments.
Methods:
We did a review of apps available on Apple App store and Google Play store based on a combination of keywords, inclusion and exclusion criteria. Validated disease activity measurement instruments were identified. Information regarding app characteristics, including the presence of validated disease activity measurement were extracted. The Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) was used to review the apps for user experience.
Results:
A total of 1,253 apps were identified in the app stores, and five apps met the criteria and were further analyzed. Two apps (MySpA and GRAPPA App) contained some of the validated disease activity monitoring instruments for specific spondyloarthritis subtypes. These two apps are also rated “good” on the MARS (with total mean scores ≥ 4/5), while the other apps scored poorly in comparison.
Conclusions:
There are two high-quality spondyloarthritis disease activity monitoring apps publicly available, but they only target two spondyloarthritis subtypes- ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis. There is a lack of high-quality apps that can measure disease activity for other spondyloarthritis subtypes, and no available app that consolidates all validated disease activity instruments across subtypes.
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