JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer mortality amongst women, globally. mHealth tools like apps and games are being used to promote early diagnosis, manage care, and support survivors and patients.

Objective:

The objective of this review is to study available tools - apps, and games, that promote early diagnosis of breast cancer by providing breast self-examination (BSE) training, monthly BSE reminders, symptom recording, and tracking and/or by providing education about breast cancer.

Methods:

The PRISMA recommendations (http://www.prisma-statement.org/) were adapted to carry out a meta-analysis of the Google PlayStore apps related to breast health. Keywords used for the search were: “breast cancer”, “breast health”, “breast self-examination”, and “breast”. Based on the available features, the selected apps were classified into the following seven categories: Education, BSE training, Reminder, Recording, Game, Educational video, and Risk Assessment. Available language options, the number of downloads, and the cost of the apps were the main parameters studied in this review.

Results:

Out of the 91 selected apps, a majority focus on disseminating breast cancer information (79.12%) but appear too complex and verbose. Breast self-examination training is provided by only 43.96% of the apps, and very few have reminder (13.77%) and recording (12.08%) features. Most of these apps (85.7%) are monolingual and around 50% of these are in English. Almost all the apps are free on Google PlayStore.

Conclusions:

Although there exist several apps on Google PlayStore to promote awareness about breast health and cancer, they are lacking in quality. We need apps that are more engaging, less verbose, and boring. Also, some critical pointers are missing in these apps about BSE which appear to be essential.