Al Bawab Abdel Qader, AlQahtani Fahad, McElnay James
Faculty of Pharmacy, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan.
Clinical and Practice Research Group, School of Pharmacy, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2018 Oct 22;6(10):e10237. doi: 10.2196/10237.
Newspapers are considered one of the most viewed and influential media sources in both the United Kingdom and United States. However, information about how newspapers portray health care apps to the readers has been lacking.
This study investigated the reporting on health care apps in newspapers published in the United Kingdom and United States.
The Nexis UK database was used to identify and select relevant articles. Systematic content analysis of the articles that met the inclusion criteria (articles of any format that contained reference to health care apps or medical apps) within the highest circulated newspapers in the United Kingdom and United States over a period of 10 years (2006-2015) was conducted. Interrater reliability of coding was established using a 10% sample of the chosen articles.
A total of 220 (151 UK and 69 US) relevant newspaper articles were retrieved. Health care apps were most frequently reported on in the Daily Mail and The Guardian (UK newspapers) and in the New York Times and the Washington Post (US newspapers). An exponential rise in published scientific articles (PubMed) on health care-related apps was noted during the study period. A total of 26.4% (58/220) and 19.1% (42/220) of the retrieved newspaper articles appeared in the features and main news sections, respectively. General information about health care apps was the main theme coved by the newspapers (45.9%, 101/220). Most of the articles represented a societal point of view (72.3%, 159/220). The main focus of the articles was on general health matters (48.2%, 106/220) and specific disease matters (36.8%, 81/220). Diabetes was the most frequently mentioned disease in the articles. A high proportion (91.4%, 201/220) of the articles mentioned benefits of using health care apps mainly for personalized care, whereas 24.1% (53/220) of the articles commented on related risks such as anxiety and confidentiality issues. Almost half (45.9%, 101/220) of the articles mentioned potential facilitators to the use of apps; less than 10% (16/220) discussed barriers. Most of the articles (83.6%, 184/220) were judged as having balanced judgment on the present topic and more than half (60.0%, 132/220) of the articles were judged to be of generally low quality.
Health care apps were not widely reported in newspaper articles in the United Kingdom and United States over the study period; however, there appeared to be much more recent interest. Characteristically, the articles focused more frequently on societal impact and on general health rather than on disease-specific apps.
在英国和美国，报纸被认为是阅读量最大且最具影响力的媒体来源之一。然而，一直缺乏关于报纸如何向读者描绘医疗保健应用程序的信息。
本研究调查了英国和美国报纸对医疗保健应用程序的报道情况。
使用英国新闻数据库（Nexis UK）来识别和选择相关文章。对在英国和美国发行量最大的报纸在10年期间（2006 - 2015年）符合纳入标准（任何格式的文章，只要提及医疗保健应用程序或医学应用程序）的文章进行系统的内容分析。使用所选文章10%的样本建立编码的评分者间信度。
共检索到220篇相关报纸文章（151篇来自英国报纸和69篇来自美国报纸）。《每日邮报》和《卫报》（英国报纸）以及《纽约时报》和《华盛顿邮报》（美国报纸）对医疗保健应用程序的报道最为频繁。在研究期间，关于医疗保健相关应用程序的已发表科学文章（来自PubMed）呈指数增长。检索到的报纸文章中，分别有26.4%（58/220）和19.1%（42/220）出现在专题报道和主要新闻版块。报纸报道医疗保健应用程序的主要主题是一般信息（45.9%，101/220）。大多数文章代表社会视角（72.3%，159/220）。文章主要关注一般健康问题（48.2%，106/220）和特定疾病问题（36.8%，81/220）。糖尿病是文章中最常提及的疾病。很大比例（91.4%，201/220）的文章提到使用医疗保健应用程序的好处，主要是用于个性化护理，而24.1%（53/220）的文章评论了相关风险，如焦虑和保密问题。几乎一半（45.9%，101/220）的文章提到了应用程序使用的潜在促进因素；不到10%（16/220）的文章讨论了障碍。大多数文章（83.6%，184/220）在当前主题上被判定为具有平衡的判断，超过一半（60.0%，132/220）的文章被判定质量普遍较低。
在研究期间，英国和美国的报纸文章中对医疗保健应用程序的报道并不广泛；然而，最近对此的兴趣似乎明显增加。其特点是，文章更频繁地关注社会影响和一般健康，而不是特定疾病的应用程序。
