JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is an integral part of mainstream medicine in China, with completely different theories and practices from modern medicine. TCM should not be ignored or simply mixed up with modern medicine in the analysis of Chinese health care system, including mobile health (mHealth) apps. To date, differences between TCM apps and modern medicine apps have not be systematically investigated.

Objective:

The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive comparison between TCM and modern medicine apps.

Methods:

In December 2020, we searched iTunes and Tencent Myapp for all mHealth apps and then categorized them as TCM or modern medicine apps if they were included in the final analysis. The included apps were downloaded on smartphones and assessed by 2 reviewers against the following 4 aspects: (1) data in the app stores, including user ratings, download counts, cost, target user and year of last update, (2) functionality, (3) quality of app content using Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) and (4) analysis of the app privacy and security.

Results:

In total, 540 apps were analyzed, including 200 TCM medicine apps and 340 modern medicine apps. The average download counts of modern medicine apps (approximately 5,000,000) was more than 10 times that of TCM apps (approximately 400,000). As for functionalities, 55% modern medicine apps provided telemedicine (26% in TCM apps) and 28.3% provided appointment making (11% in TCM apps). A larger proportion of TCM apps could realize medication provision (52.5% in TCM apps versus 35.5% in modern medicine apps) and wellness management (29.5% in TCM apps versus 11.1% in modern medicine apps). We then selected 81 top apps for quality and safety assessment (41 TCM apps and 40 modern medicine apps). Of these, the mean overall MARS score of TCM apps (2.7±0.5) was significantly lower than modern medicine apps (3.6±0.4). Almost all of the modern medicine apps (38/40, 95%) addressed privacy and security by providing a privacy policy and describing how to protect personals data, but less than half of TCM apps (18/41, 43.9%) described it (p<.001).

Conclusions:

The different functionalities reflect the distinct innate characters between these two medical systems. Although great progress has been made and the Chinese mHealth market size has been large, there still exists huge space for future development, especially for TCM.