Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Sep 4, 2023
Date Accepted: Jun 5, 2024
Nutrition-Related Mobile Apps in the Spanish App Stores: Assessment of Functionality and Quality
ABSTRACT
Background:
Mobile apps represent accessible and cost-effective tools to improve nutrition and prevent chronic diseases. However, most of these apps have been characterized for having limited functionality, raising concerns about their effectiveness, acceptability, and efficacy.
Objective:
To assess the quality of popular nutrition-related apps platforms in Spain and to describe their characteristics and functionalities.
Methods:
We screened apps providing information on dietary advice, food advice, and nutritional content in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Spain. Apps with a star rating of ≥4 (of 5 stars), available in Spanish, free of charge, last updated after January 2020, with >500 reviews, and >500,000 downloads were included. The quality of apps was assessed with the user version of the Mobile App Rating Scale (uMARS). General characteristics, the nutritional, health, and market-related functionalities of the nutrition-related apps were described. Correlations among total and uMARS sections, star rating, and numbers of reviews and downloads were evaluated.
Results:
Among the 1,392 apps identified in the search, 38 apps met the criteria, of which most (60.5%) aimed at recording and analyzing food intake. The mean (standard deviation [SD]) total uMARS score (maximum 5 points) was 4.22 (0.34), while 4.59 (0.47) was for functionality, 4.28 (0.56) for aesthetics, 4.07 (0.38) for information, and 3.94 (0.39) for engagement. Lower mean scores were observed for the subjective quality (3.22 [0.61] and perceived impact (3.48 [0.70]). Moderate to strong positive significant correlations were observed between total uMARS and section-specific uMARS scores, while total uMARS scores were very low correlated with user rating, number of reviews, and downloads.
Conclusions:
Quality of popular nutrition-related apps platforms in Spain was good, observing remarkable differences between sections. Only few apps, however, provided dietary structure analysis or nutritional education. Further research is needed to assess long-term impact of these apps on users.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.