Rodin Alexander, Shachak Aviv, Miller Aaron, Akopyan Vladimir, Semenova Nataliya
TorontoEyeExam.com, Oakville, ON, Canada.
Department of Ophthalmology, Faculty of Fundamental Medicine, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation.
JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2017 Jun 14;5(6):e84. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.7055.
Mobile phone screens can facilitate stimulation to various components of the visual system and many mobile apps are accepted as a means of providing clinical assessments for the oculo-visual system. Although many of these apps are intended for use in clinical settings, there is a growing number of apps in eye care developed for self-tests and eye exercises for lay people. These and other features, however, have not yet been well described.
Our objective was to identify, describe, and categorize mobile apps related to eye care that are available to users in the Canadian iTunes market.
We conducted an extensive search of the Apple iTunes Store for apps related to eye care. We used the terms "eye," "eye care," "vision," and "eye test" and included apps that are targeted at both lay people and medical professionals. We excluded apps whose primary function is not related to eye care. Eligible apps were categorized by primary purpose, based on how they were described by their developers in the iTunes Store.
Our search yielded 10,657 apps, of which 427 met our inclusion criteria. After removing duplicates, 355 unique apps were subject to further review. We assigned the eligible apps to three distinct categories: 39/355 apps (11.0%) were intended for use by medical professionals, 236 apps (66.5%, 236/355) were intended for use by lay people, and 80 apps (22.5%, 80/355) were intended for marketing eye care and eye-care products. We identified 9 subcategories of apps based on the descriptions of their primary functions. Apps for medical professionals fell into three subcategories: clinical calculators (n=6), clinical diagnostic tools (n=18), and education and networking apps for professionals (n=15). Apps for lay people fell into four subcategories: self-testing (n=153), eye exercises (n=30), patient tools and low vision aids (n=35), and apps for patient education (n=18). Mixed-use apps (n=80) were placed into two subcategories: marketing of individual practitioners or eye-care products (n=72) and marketing of multiple eye-care products or professional services.
The most extensive subcategory pertaining to eye care consisted of apps for use by lay people, especially for conducting self-tests (n=236). This study revealed a previously uncharacterized category of apps intended for use by doctors and patients, of which the primary goal is marketing of eye-care services and products (n=80).
手机屏幕可促进对视神经系统各组成部分的刺激，许多移动应用程序被用作提供眼视觉系统临床评估的手段。尽管这些应用程序中的许多旨在临床环境中使用，但为非专业人士进行自我测试和眼部锻炼而开发的眼科护理应用程序数量正在增加。然而，这些以及其他功能尚未得到充分描述。
我们的目的是识别、描述和分类加拿大iTunes市场上可供用户使用的与眼科护理相关的移动应用程序。
我们在苹果iTunes商店中广泛搜索与眼科护理相关的应用程序。我们使用了“眼睛”、“眼科护理”、“视力”和“视力测试”等术语，并纳入了针对非专业人士和医学专业人员的应用程序。我们排除了主要功能与眼科护理无关的应用程序。符合条件的应用程序根据其主要目的进行分类，这基于其开发者在iTunes商店中的描述方式。
我们的搜索产生了10657个应用程序，其中427个符合我们的纳入标准。去除重复项后，355个独特的应用程序接受了进一步审查。我们将符合条件的应用程序分为三个不同类别：39/355个应用程序（1
