Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Apr 21, 2024
Date Accepted: Feb 12, 2026
Smartphone Apps for Cannabis Cessation: Quality Assessment and Content Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
The rising rates of cannabis use, cannabis-related problems, and hospitalization rates related to cannabis usage warrant further research into better treatment methods and interventions.
Objective:
This study aims to identify the quality of free cannabis cessation applications available on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store and analyse their features, content, and adherence to evidence-based practices.
Methods:
A systematic search was conducted in April 2023 using a variety of keywords. The applications were deemed eligible if they were free, in English, available on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store and were related to cannabis cessation. Each application was used for at least one month and were rated on the Mobile App Rating Scale by two users. There was excellent agreement determined between the two reviewers (≤2 points on all categories).
Results:
A total of 4 applications were included in the overall quality and content analysis. The mean total quality scores of applications were determined to be 3.36 out of 5 indicating a poor to acceptable quality of applications. It was determined that there was a very limited number of available applications for users and those that were available were not of high quality with few applications incorporating evidence-based practices.
Conclusions:
There are a very limited number of cannabis cessation applications available, and the currently available products have poor to acceptable quality.
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.