Izahar Syarafina, Lean Qi Ying, Hameed Mohammed Abdul, Murugiah Muthu Kumar, Patel Rahul P, Al-Worafi Yaser Mohammed, Wong Tin Wui, Ming Long Chiau
Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam, Malaysia.
Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Bertam, Malaysia.
Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2017 Nov 27;8:318. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2017.00318. eCollection 2017.
Diabetes self-management offers an opportunity to patients to be actively involved in managing their conditions and modifying lifestyle behaviors to attain positive health outcomes. With the unprecedented growth of mobile technology, smartphone plays a role in supporting diabetes self-management. Nonetheless, selecting appropriate mobile applications (apps) is challenging for patients. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate and compare the contents and features of mobile medical apps for diabetes self-management. Of 346 commercial apps, 16 (16%) and 19 (7.72%) of the diabetes apps found in Apple and Google Play stores, respectively, were included based on the selection criteria and individually scored for the availability of 8 main features of diabetes self-management. The apps supported self-management by offering features such as free installation, less than 50 MB space used, offline use, automated data entry, data export and sharing, educational tool, and advice. Of the 8 evaluated features, only 11 (31.4%) apps had a score of 5 whereas 7 (20%) apps scored the lowest, with a score of 3. The majority of apps were free, required no Internet connectivity to use and were less than 50 MB in size. Our findings showed that the design of diabetes mobile apps focused on reporting and setting reminders, rather than providing personalized education or therapeutic support. In the future, the design of apps could be improved to integrate patients' needs, usability for disease management, and lifestyle modifications.
糖尿病自我管理为患者提供了一个积极参与管理自身病情并改变生活方式行为以实现良好健康结果的机会。随着移动技术前所未有的发展，智能手机在支持糖尿病自我管理方面发挥着作用。尽管如此，患者在选择合适的移动应用程序（应用）时仍面临挑战。因此，本研究旨在评估和比较用于糖尿病自我管理的移动医疗应用的内容和功能。在346款商业应用中，根据选择标准，分别纳入了在苹果应用商店和谷歌Play商店中找到的16款（16%）和19款（7.72%）糖尿病应用，并针对糖尿病自我管理8项主要功能的可用性进行了单独评分。这些应用通过提供免费安装、使用空间小于50MB、离线使用、自动数据录入、数据导出与共享、教育工具以及建议等功能来支持自我管理。在评估的8项功能中，只有11款（31.4%）应用得分为5，而7款（20%）应用得分最低，为3分。大多数应用是免费的，使用时无需互联网连接，且大小小于50MB。我们的研究结果表明，糖尿病移动应用的设计侧重于报告和设置提醒，而非提供个性化教育或治疗支持。未来，应用的设计可以改进，以整合患者需求、疾病管理的易用性以及生活方式改变等方面。
