Instituto de Efectividad Clínica y Sanitaria (IECS-CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Centro de Investigaciones Epidemiológicas y Salud Pública (CIESP-IECS), CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
PLoS One. 2021 Feb 4;16(2):e0246061. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246061. eCollection 2021.
The use of substandard and counterfeit medicines (SCM) leads to significant health and economic consequences, like treatment failure, rise of antimicrobial resistance, extra expenditures of individuals or households and serious adverse drug reactions including death. Our objective was to systematically search, identify and compare relevant available mobile applications (apps) for smartphones and tablets, which use could potentially affect clinical and public health outcomes. We carried out a systematic review of the literature in January 2020, including major medical databases, and app stores. We used the validated Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) to assess the quality of apps, (1 worst score, 3 acceptable score, and 5 best score). We planned to evaluate the accuracy of the mobile apps to detect SCM. We retrieved 335 references through medical databases and 42 from Apple, Google stores and Google Scholar. We finally included two studies of the medical database, 25 apps (eight from the App Store, eight from Google Play, eight from both stores, and one from Google Scholar), and 16 websites. We only found one report on the accuracy of a mobile apps detecting SCMs. Most apps use the imprint, color or shape for pill identification, and only a few offer pill detection through photographs or bar code. The MARS mean score for the apps was 3.17 (acceptable), with a maximum of 4.9 and a minimum of 1.1. The 'functionality' dimension resulted in the highest mean score (3.4), while the 'engagement' and 'information' dimensions showed the lowest one (3.0). In conclusion, we found a remarkable evidence gap about the accuracy of mobile apps in detecting SCMs. However, mobile apps could potentially be useful to screen for SCM by assessing the physical characteristics of pills, although this should still be assessed in properly designed research studies.
使用劣质和假冒药品（SCM）会导致严重的健康和经济后果，例如治疗失败、抗生素耐药性增加、个人或家庭额外支出以及严重的药物不良反应，包括死亡。我们的目的是系统地搜索、识别和比较智能手机和平板电脑上可能影响临床和公共卫生结果的相关现有移动应用程序（apps）。我们于 2020 年 1 月对文献进行了系统评价，包括主要医学数据库和应用程序商店。我们使用经过验证的移动应用程序评级量表（MARS）来评估应用程序的质量（1 分最差，3 分可接受，5 分最佳）。我们计划评估移动应用程序检测 SCM 的准确性。我们通过医学数据库检索到 335 条参考文献，从苹果、谷歌商店和谷歌学术检索到 42 条参考文献。我们最终包括了两项来自医学数据库的研究，25 个应用程序（来自 App Store 的 8 个，来自 Google Play 的 8 个，来自两个商店的 8 个，以及来自 Google Scholar 的 1 个）和 16 个网站。我们只发现了一份关于移动应用程序检测 SCM 准确性的报告。大多数应用程序使用药丸的印记、颜色或形状进行识别，只有少数应用程序通过照片或条形码提供药丸检测。应用程序的 MARS 平均得分为 3.17（可接受），最高得分为 4.9，最低得分为 1.1。“功能”维度的平均得分最高（3.4），而“参与度”和“信息”维度的得分最低（3.0）。总之，我们发现了一个关于移动应用程序检测 SCM 准确性的显著证据差距。然而，移动应用程序通过评估药丸的物理特征，有可能用于筛查 SCM，尽管这仍需要在经过精心设计的研究中进行评估。
