Zhang Puhong, Dong Le, Chen Huan, Chai Yanling, Liu Jianbo
Department of Women and Child Health, The George Institute for Global Health at Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China.
Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health, Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China.
JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2018 Jun 8;6(6):e140. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.9302.
Mobile health services are thriving in the field of maternal and child health in China due to expansions in the field of electronic health and the introduction of the two-child policy. There are numerous maternal and child health apps in computer stores, but the exact number of apps, number of downloads, and features of these apps is not known.
This study aimed to explore the use of maternal and child health apps in Android and iOS app stores and to describe the key functional features of the most popular apps, with the purpose of providing insight into further research and development of maternal and child health mobile health products.
The researchers conducted a search in the 3 most popular Android app stores (Tencent MyApp, Baidu Mobile Assistant, and 360 Mobile Assistant) and the iTunes App Store in China. All apps regarding family planning (contraception and preparing for pregnancy), pregnancy and perinatal care, neonatal care and health, and development for children under 6 years were included in the initial analysis. Maternal and child health mobile apps with predominant features of product marketing, children's songs, animation, or games were excluded from the study. The 50 most frequently used apps in each of the Android stores as well as the iTunes store (a total of 78 deduplicated apps) were selected and downloaded for an in-depth analysis.
A total of 5276 Android apps and 877 iOS apps developed for maternal and child health care were identified. Of the 78 most frequently used apps, 43 (55%) apps focused on one stage of MCH care, mainly targeting child care (25 apps) and before pregnancy care (11 apps), whereas 35 (45%) of the apps covered 2 or more stages, most of which (32 apps) included both pregnancy and child care services. The app features that were commonly adopted by the popular apps were health education, communication, health status self-monitoring, a diary, reminders, and counseling. Within the app feature of "health status self-monitoring," the researchers found 47 specific tools supporting activities such as pregnancy preparation, fetal heart monitoring, blood glucose and blood pressure monitoring, and doctor visits. A few apps were equipped with external devices (n=3) or sensors. No app with intelligent decision-support features to support disease management for conditions such as gestational diabetes and pregnancy-induced hypertension was found. A small number of apps (n=5) had a Web connection with hospital information systems to support appointment making, payments, hospital service guidance, or checking of laboratory results.
There are thousands of maternal and child health apps in the Chinese market. Child care, pregnancy, and before pregnancy were the mostly covered maternal and child health stages, in that order. Various app features and tools were adopted by maternal and child health apps, but the use of internal or external sensors, intelligent decision support, and tethering with existing hospital information systems was rare and these features need more research and development.
由于电子健康领域的拓展以及二孩政策的出台，移动健康服务在中国妇幼健康领域蓬勃发展。电脑商店中有众多妇幼健康应用程序，但这些应用程序的确切数量、下载量以及功能尚不清楚。
本研究旨在探索安卓和iOS应用商店中妇幼健康应用程序的使用情况，并描述最受欢迎应用程序的关键功能特性，以便为妇幼健康移动健康产品的进一步研发提供参考。
研究人员在中国最受欢迎的3个安卓应用商店（腾讯应用宝、百度手机助手和360手机助手）以及iTunes应用商店中进行搜索。所有涉及计划生育（避孕和备孕）、孕期及围产期保健、新生儿护理与健康以及6岁以下儿童发育的应用程序均纳入初始分析。具有产品营销、儿歌、动画或游戏等主要功能的妇幼健康移动应用程序被排除在研究之外。从每个安卓应用商店以及iTunes应用商店中选择50个使用频率最高的应用程序（共78个去重后的应用程序）进行下载，以便进行深入分析。
共识别出5276个为妇幼保健开发的安卓应用程序和877个iOS应用程序。在78个使用频率最高的应用程序中，43个（55%）应用程序专注于妇幼保健的一个阶段，主要针对儿童护理（25个应用程序）和孕前护理（11个应用程序），而35个（45%）应用程序涵盖两个或更多阶段，其中大多数（32个应用程序）包括孕期和儿童护理服务。受欢迎的应用程序普遍采用的应用功能包括健康教育、交流、健康状况自我监测、日记、提醒和咨询。在“健康状况自我监测”的应用功能中，研究人员发现了47种支持诸如备孕、胎心监测、血糖和血压监测以及就医等活动的特定工具。少数应用程序配备了外部设备（n = 3）或传感器。未发现具有智能决策支持功能以支持妊娠期糖尿病和妊娠高血压等疾病管理的应用程序。少数应用程序（n = 5）与医院信息系统建立了网络连接，以支持预约、支付、医院服务引导或检查检验结果。
中国市场上有数千个妇幼健康应用程序。儿童护理、孕期和孕前是妇幼健康领域覆盖最多的阶段，顺序依次为儿童护理、孕期、孕前。妇幼健康应用程序采用了各种应用功能和工具，但内部或外部传感器、智能决策支持以及与现有医院信息系统的连接的使用较少，这些功能需要更多的研发。
