Previously submitted to: JMIR mHealth and uHealth (no longer under consideration since Oct 06, 2023)
Date Submitted: May 28, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: May 28, 2023 - Jul 23, 2023
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Evaluation of mHealth Applications for Management of Primary Dysmenorrhea in Saudi Arabia: a quality review and content analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Primary dysmenorrhea (PD), common in women below 25 years, occurs as a pain in the absence of any identifiable pathology at the pelvis. Menstrual tracking applications (MTAs) may help women in managing their PD symptoms. No systematic assessment has been performed on MTA quality with respect to physical therapy management exercise description.
Objective:
: This study evaluated the quality of MTAs available in Saudi Arabia for mobile users in both the App Store and Google Play Store and also assessed the quality of exercise content provided as an intervention for management of PD symptoms.
Methods:
In this cross-sectional study, apps were collected from the App Store and Google Play Store using two strategies for each store independently i.e., Scraper and SimilarWeb. The app quality was evaluated using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS), and the exercise content was evaluated based on the recommended Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type (FITT) principles.
Results:
Final evaluation included 16 apps, of which 87.5% required subscription. The mean app quality score ranged from 2.54 (worst-rated app) to 4.45 (best-rated app) with a mean score of 3.54±0.58. In addition, only 3 apps provided all FITT components in the exercise content.
Conclusions:
All apps included in this study had low engagement scores and only three of them covered all FITT principles. This study encourages the app developers to work with health care professionals, especially physical therapists, to address exercise management methods accurately and comprehensively.
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