JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Dental caries is the most common oral disease and affects 60-90% of the world’s population. It is highly preventable through effective self-management strategies addressing key risk factors; oral hygiene, fluoride usage and dietary intake. Mobile apps have the potential to support patients with dental caries but, little is known about the availability, target audience, quality and features of these apps.

Objective:

This review aimed to systematically examine dental caries prevention apps, describe their content, availability, target audience, quality and features.

Methods:

We systematically identified and evaluated apps in a process paralleling a systematic review . This included; 1) search strategy using the search terms of dental caries, early childhood caries, tooth decay, dental caries prevention, early childhood caries prevention, tooth decay prevention, saliva, and fluoride 2) eligibility assessment, using inclusion and exclusion criteria focused on accessibility and dental caries self-management behaviors including oral hygiene, dietary intake and fluoride usage, 3) data extraction, on app characteristics including app store metrics, 4) risk factor categorization 5) feature identification and description 6) quality appraisal of all apps using the validated Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) assessment tool 7) data comparison and analysis

Results:

Our search strategy retrieved 562 apps from the Google Play and iTunes store available in Australia. Of those, 40 apps fit our eligibility criteria and 22 of 40 targeted adults, 37/40 were free to download and 26/ 40 were recently updated. Oral hygiene was the most common risk factor addressed with 37 out of 40 addressing this risk factor, 18/40 addressed dietary intake and 17 of 40 addressed fluoride. Overall 20/40 addressed only one of these risk factors and 15/40 addressed all three risk factors. The mean MARS score was 2.9 (range 1.8-4.4), with 18 out of 40 apps categorized as high quality, with a rating above 3.0 out of 5.0. The top 5 most popular features focused on the oral hygiene risk factor. The highest-ranking app was the ‘Brush DJ’ app with an overall MARS score of 4.4, had the highest number of features(n=13) but still focused mainly on oral hygiene. We identified a gap in apps addressing the risk factors for very young children, targeting parents and our 21 identified features, may be useful blueprint for future co-designed app development.

Conclusions:

Apps targeting dental caries risk factors commonly focus on oral hygiene and many target children/ young adults but not many are of high quality. These apps utilized a range of features to support consumer engagement and some of these features may be helpful for high-risk populations. It is however unclear how effective these apps are in improving dental caries outcomes and further evaluation is required before they are widely recommended.