Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Nov 4, 2019
Date Accepted: May 13, 2020
Validation and selection of criteria to evaluate apps for overweight and obesity management: a Delphi study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The use of Mobile Applications (apps) for managing overweightness/obesity has increased over recent years. However, there is a lack of evidence on the efficacy, effectiveness and safety of these apps. The EVALAPPS project will develop and validate an assessment tool for specifically assessing these dimensions in overweightness/obesity management apps.
Objective:
To reach a consensus among stakeholders on a comprehensive set of criteria to guide development of the EVALAPPS assessment tool. A modified Delphi process was used in order to: 1) verify the robustness of the criteria identified through a literature review; 2) prioritize a set of the identified criteria.
Methods:
31 stakeholders were invited to participate in a 2 round Delphi process with an initial number of 114 criteria identified in the literature. In Round 1 participants rated criteria according to relevance (0 = “I suggest to exclude this criteria”, 5 = “This criterion is extremely relevant”). A criterion was accepted if a median value equal or greater than 4 and RIQR equal or less than 0.67 was reached. In Round 2 participants were asked about criteria discarded in round 1. The prioritization strategy was based on identifying those indicators categorized as Crucial in Round 1 according to: a) the importance attributed by participants (criteria with a mean value ≥ 4.00); and, b) the level of agreement (criteria scoring almost 4-5 by 80% of the participants).
Results:
The response rate was 84% in Round 1, 90% in Round 2. A total number of 107 criteria were accepted by consensus (94%), 105 in Round 1 and 2 in Round 2. After the prioritization strategy, 53 criteria were deemed Crucial. These related mainly to the Security and Privacy (24.5%) and Usability (17.0%) dimensions, followed by Health indicators: Activity data, Clinical Effectiveness and Reliability (9.4% each).
Conclusions:
Results confirmed the robustness of the criteria identified with those relating to Security and Privacy being deemed most relevant by stakeholders. Additionally, a specific set of criteria based on Health indicators was also prioritized (taken together, 20.7%).
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