Department of Community Health Sciences, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, NY, United States.
Department of Computer Science, Grove School of Engineering, City College of New York, New York, NY, United States.
JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2020 Oct 29;8(10):e15076. doi: 10.2196/15076.
The development and use of mobile health (mHealth) apps for asthma management have risen dramatically over the past two decades. Asthma apps vary widely in their content and features; however, prior research has rarely examined preferences of users of publicly available apps.
The goals of this study were to provide a descriptive overview of asthma mobile apps that are publicly available and to assess the usability of asthma apps currently available on the market to identify content and features of apps associated with positive and negative user ratings.
Reviews were collected on June 23, 2020, and included publicly posted reviews until June 21, 2020. To characterize features associated with high or low app ratings, we first dichotomized the average user rating of the asthma app into 2 categories: a high average rating and a low average rating. Asthma apps with average ratings of 4 and above were categorized as having a high average rating. Asthma apps with average ratings of less than 4 were categorized as having a low average rating. For the sentiment analysis, we modeled both 2-word (bi-gram) and 3-word (tri-gram) phrases which commonly appeared across highly rated and lowly rated apps.
Of the 10 apps that met the inclusion criteria, a total of 373 reviews were examined across all apps. Among apps reviewed, 53.4% (199/373) received high ratings (average ratings of 4 or 5) and 47.2% (176/373) received low ratings (average ratings of 3 or less). The number of ratings across all apps ranged from 188 (AsthmaMD) to 10 (My Asthma App); 30% (3/10) of apps were available on both Android and iOS. From the sentiment analysis, key features of asthma management that were common among highly rated apps included the tracking of peak flow readings (n=48), asthma symptom monitoring (n=11), and action plans (n=10). Key features related to functionality that were common among highly rated apps included ease of use (n=5). Users most commonly reported loss of data (n=14) and crashing of app (n=12) as functionality issues among poorly rated asthma apps.
Our study results demonstrate that asthma app quality, maintenance, and updates vary widely across apps and platforms. These findings may call into question the long-term engagement with asthma apps, a crucial factor for determining their potential to improve asthma self-management and asthma clinical outcomes.
在过去的二十年中，移动医疗（mHealth）应用程序在哮喘管理中的开发和使用急剧增加。哮喘应用程序在内容和功能上差异很大；然而，先前的研究很少检查公开可用应用程序的用户偏好。
本研究的目的是提供对公开可用的哮喘移动应用程序的描述性概述，并评估市场上当前可用的哮喘应用程序的可用性，以确定与正面和负面用户评分相关的应用程序的内容和功能。
2020 年 6 月 23 日进行了综述，包括截至 2020 年 6 月 21 日的公开发布评论。为了描述与高或低应用评分相关的特征，我们首先将哮喘应用程序的平均用户评分分为 2 类：高平均评分和低平均评分。平均评分为 4 分及以上的哮喘应用程序被归类为具有高平均评分。平均评分低于 4 分的哮喘应用程序被归类为具有低平均评分。对于情感分析，我们对高评分和低评分的应用程序中常见的 2 个单词（双字）和 3 个单词（三字）短语进行了建模。
在符合纳入标准的 10 个应用程序中，总共检查了所有应用程序的 373 条评论。在所审查的应用程序中，53.4%（199/373）获得了高评分（平均评分为 4 或 5），47.2%（176/373）获得了低评分（平均评分为 3 或以下）。所有应用程序的评分范围从 188（AsthmaMD）到 10（My Asthma App）；30%（3/10）的应用程序可在 Android 和 iOS 上使用。从情感分析来看，高评分哮喘管理应用程序中常见的关键功能包括峰值流量读数的跟踪（n=48）、哮喘症状监测（n=11）和行动计划（n=10）。高评分应用程序中与功能相关的常见关键功能包括易用性（n=5）。用户最常报告数据丢失（n=14）和应用程序崩溃（n=12）是评分较差的哮喘应用程序中的功能问题。
我们的研究结果表明，哮喘应用程序的质量、维护和更新在应用程序和平台之间差异很大。这些发现可能会对哮喘应用程序的长期参与产生质疑，这是确定其改善哮喘自我管理和哮喘临床结果潜力的关键因素。
