Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Jul 9, 2022
Date Accepted: Dec 20, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Menstrual tracking mobile app quality evaluations by consumers and healthcare providers
ABSTRACT
Background:
Women’s menstrual cycles are an important component of their overall health. Physiological cycles and associated symptoms can be monitored continuously and used as indicators in various fields. Menstrual apps are accessible and can be used to promote overall female health. However, no study has evaluated such apps’ functionality from both consumers’ and healthcare providers’ perspectives. As such, the evidence indicating whether the menstrual apps available on the market provide user satisfaction is insufficient.
Objective:
This study was performed to investigate the key content and quality of menstrual apps from the perspectives of healthcare providers and consumers. We also analyzed the correlations between healthcare provider and consumer evaluation scores. On the basis of this analysis, we offer technical and policy recommendations that could increase the usability and convenience of future applications.
Methods:
We searched the Google Play Store and iOS App Store using the keywords “period” and “menstrual cycle”, in English and Korean, and identified 34 relevant apps. The inclusion criteria were as follows: nonduplicate, > 10,000 reviews, last updated ≤ 180 days ago, relevant to this topic, written in Korean or English, available free of charge, and currently operational. App contents were assessed according to star ratings and the number of reviews. App quality was evaluated according to consumers’ and healthcare providers’ Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) and user version of the Mobile Application Rating Scale (uMARS) scores. We then analyzed the correlations among MARS scores, uMARS scores, star ratings, and the number of reviews.
Results:
Most apps (91.2%) could be used to predict the menstrual cycle, and a few (5.9%) provided information pertinent to health screening. All apps that scored highly in the MARS evaluation offer a symptom logging function and provide the user with personalized notifications. In addition, there was no relationship between MARS and uMARS scores(r=0.31).
Conclusions:
To improve consumer satisfaction and ensure that consumers continue using the apps, it is necessary to develop a consumer evaluation scale similar to the uMARS to evaluate app quality. Application developers and consumers will be able to use this study as a guide for content development and app selection, respectively.
Citation
