JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Recently, mHealth and mobile applications (apps) have been proposed as a potential tool to improve different outcomes (e.g., daily steps, blood glucose) in both people with and without chronic conditions. Previous evidence investigated different types of interventions adopting apps in various settings and populations, but evidence of their effectiveness is still unclear.

Objective:

The aim was to assess the effectiveness of mobile apps in improving health variables (e.g., daily steps, VO2 max) in healthy adults, involving an intervention regarding physical activity (PA), diet or their combination thereof.

Methods:

A systematic review was performed using Medline via PubMed, Cochrane Library – CENTRAL and Embase. Only RCTs comparing the same intervention provided with and without a mobile app, or a treatment and a mobile app compared with the treatment only were included in this systematic review. The RoB 2.0 tool was used to assess the risk of bias.

Results:

Only two studies were included in the review of mobile apps for PA, none were included for mobile apps for diet and none for mobile apps for PA and diet combined. The quality of evidence was low due to a high risk of bias and several missing data. Mobile apps' effectiveness in improving diet, physical activity or their combination, can’t be assessed.

Conclusions:

Despite the widespread use of mobile apps for health and the large number of relative publications, the results of this systematic review did not allow to ascertain the effectiveness of mobile apps for health, but they provided fundamental insights for future research. There is an urgent need to develop stronger evidence of mHealth effectiveness in addressing different populations and types of interventions. PROSPERO: CRD42023485803.