JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The mHealth app trustworthiness (mHAT) checklist was created to identify end-users’ opinions on the characteristics of trustworthy mHealth apps and to communicate this information to app developers. To ensure that the checklist is suited for all relevant stakeholders, it is necessary to validate its contents.

Objective:

The purpose of this study was to validate the mHAT checklist by modifying its contents according to ratings and suggestions from stakeholders familiar with the process of developing, managing, or curating mHealth apps.

Methods:

A 44-item online survey was administered to relevant stakeholders. The survey was largely comprised of the mHAT checklist items which respondents rated on a five-point Likert-type scale from completely disagree to completely agree.

Results:

In total, 7 professional backgrounds were represented in the survey: administrators (n = 6), health professionals (n = 7), IT personnel (n = 6), managers (n = 2), marketing personnel (n = 3), researchers (n = 5), and user experience researchers (n = 8). None of the checklist items were terminated since the combined positive ratings (agree and completely agree) exceeded that of the combined negative ratings (disagree and completely disagree). Rather, two new suggestions were added: 1) business or funding model of the app and 2) details on app uninstallation statistics.

Conclusions:

Our results indicate that the mHAT checklist is a valuable resource for a broad range of stakeholders to develop trustworthy mHealth apps. Future studies should examine if the checklist works best for certain mHealth apps or in specific settings.