JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Through the increasing ageing population the health care system is confronted with a variety of challenges, such as expanding health care costs. To manage these challenges, mobile applications (MA) may represent a cost-effective and low-threshold approach to support older adults.

Objective:

This systematic review aimed to evaluate the quality, characteristics as well as privacy and security measures of MAs for older adults in the European commercial app stores.

Methods:

In the European Apple App and Google Play store, a web crawler systematically searched for MAs for older adults. The identified MAs were evaluated by two independent reviewers using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS). Correlation between user star ratings and the overall rating was calculated. Exploratory regression analysis was conducted to determine whether the obligation to pay fees predicted overall quality.

Results:

In total, 83 of 1,217 identified MAs were included in analysis. Generally, the MAs for older adults were of moderate quality (M=3.22, SD=0.68). Four MAs (4.8%) were evidence-based. Forty-one (49.4%) of the MAs had no security measures. The user star rating correlated significantly positively with the overall rating (r=.30, P<.05). Obligation to pay fees could not predict overall quality.

Conclusions:

There is an extensive quality range within MAs for older adults, indicating deficits in terms of information quality, data protection, and security precautions, as well as a lack of evidence-based approaches. Central databases are needed to identify high-quality MAs.