Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Jun 17, 2019
Date Accepted: Sep 4, 2019
Predictors of the Number of Installs in Psychiatry Smartphone Apps: Systematic Search on App Stores and Content Analysis.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Mental health is integral to our salubrity, but mental disorders are very debilitating and common. Therefore, it is critical to provide accessible, timely, and inexpensive mental care. This can be done through mHealth, namely mobile medical applications (apps), which are gaining popularity among clinicians and patients. mHealth is a fast-paced field, and there is significant variation in the number of installs among Psychiatry apps. However, the factors that influence Psychiatry app installs have yet to be studied.
Objective:
To identify predictors of the number of app installs in Psychiatry.
Methods:
A literature review identified which factors influence app installs. Psychiatry apps available in the Google Play Store were reviewed and publicly available data collected. A multivariate ordinal logistic regression was performed to evaluate the effect of said factors on the number of installs.
Results:
Our search identified 128 Psychiatry apps: three (2.3%) had never been installed, approximately half (53.1%) had less than 500 installs and only one (0.7%) had over 10,000,000 installs. A multivariate logistic regression identified that cheaper apps (P< .001), with higher rating (P< .001), in-app purchases (P< .001), and age restriction (P= .038) had a higher number of installs. The involvement of a Psychiatrist or other healthcare professional had no statistically significant influence on the number of installs. Only data from the Google Play Store and the developers’ websites were available for analysis, and the depth of involvement of healthcare professionals was impossible to document.
Conclusions:
Psychiatry apps with a lower price, optional in-app purchases, age-restriction, and a higher rating are expected to have a higher number of installs. Unlike other medical fields, in this review, the explicit participation of Psychiatrists in app development was not a significant predictor of the number of installs. Research is needed to identify other factors that may influence the number of installs, as that can help in future Psychiatry app development.
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