JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Since the 2008 advent of the smartphone, more than 180 billion copies of apps have been downloaded from the Apple App Store, with more than 2.6 million apps available for Android, and 2.2 million apps available for iOS. Many violence prevention and response apps have been developed as part of this app proliferation.

Objective:

To evaluate the quality of freely available mobile phone applications targeting intimate partner violence and sexual violence prevention and response.

Methods:

We conducted a systematic review of violence prevention and response mobile phone applications freely available in the Apple App Store (iOS) (March 2016) and Google Play (Android) store (July 2016). Search terms included: violence prevention, sexual assault, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, forensic nursing, wife abuse, rape. Apps were included for review if they were: freely available, English language, had a primary purpose related to prevention or response to sexual or intimate partner violence regardless of app target end users.

Results:

Using the Mobile App Rating Scale, we reviewed a total of 132 unique apps. The majority of apps reviewed had a primary purpose of sharing information or resources. Overall the apps reviewed were of low-to-moderate quality with the Overall Subjective Quality mean for the reviewed apps being 2.65 (95% CI 2.58-2.72). Quality scores for each of the five MARS categories ranged from 2.80 (Engagement) to 4.75 (Functionality). An incidental but important finding of our review was the difficulty in searching for apps and the plethora of non-related apps that appear when searching for key words such as “rape” and “domestic violence” that may be harmful to people seeking help.

Conclusions:

While there are a variety of mobile applications available designed to provide information or other services related to sexual and partner violence, they range greatly in quality. They are also challenging to find given the current infrastructure of app store searches, keyword prioritization, and highlighting based on user rating. It is important for providers to be aware of these resources and be knowledgeable on how to review and recommend mobile phone apps to patients when appropriate.