BACKGROUND

Children are one of the biggest users of emergency departments in the UK, sometimes utilising services when experiencing acute illnesses that can be managed at home. mHealth can be an efficacious way for parents/guardians to manage acute illnesses. It has also become a ubiquitous resource to promote public health interests within a resource constrained health system. However, to be effective, co-design is necessary with concepts such as usefulness, ease of use, trustworthiness and security underpinning the utility of mHealth interventions for acute childhood illness.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study was to conduct an environmental scan of mHealth apps for parental assessment and management of acute childhood illnesses in 0- to 5-year-olds, review the content and functionality of each identified app against the list of desired attributes identified in previous research and synthesise publicly available reviews from end users to demonstrate the quality of current apps in the marketplace and identify areas for improvement.

METHOD

App characteristics were mapped to an a priori defined list of desirable attributes. End user reviews were mapped to a modified Technology Acceptance Model framework that included overarching themes of: Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEU), Perceived Trustworthiness (PT) and Perceived Security (PS) using reflexive thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Overall, 15 apps were included in the analysis (Table 2). Fourteen of the 15 apps were available on both the iOS and Android platforms. 'Baby Illness, Prevention, Cure' was only available on the Android store. All apps were free to download and did not restrict access to information or features via in-app purchases. Baby and child first aid (British Red Cross) was the earliest app to be released (2014). This app was updated annually, with the most recent update being 2022. The most recent apps to be released (2018) were 'AskFirst' (formerly Ask NHS), 'Essex Child Health' and 'The Lullaby Trust Baby Check', updated in 2022, 2020 and 2019, respectively. No individual app met all the desirable attributes highlighted by parents in previous research. Both 'Healthier Together', and 'The Lullaby Trust Baby Check' included all but one desirable attributes (video), as did the ''CATCH (Common Approach to Children's Health), which did not utilise a traffic light system. Apps that were locality specific were not rated by users (Berkshire Child Health, Cheshire Child Health, Child Health Guide Newham, Child Health HMR, Oldham Child Illness and Walsall Healthy Child). All other apps were rated from 2/5 to 5/5 stars. When considering localities, the 'CATCH' app was only supported in Halton, Cheshire, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens and Vale Royal. Further investigation evidenced no correlation between inclusion of the desirable attributes and app rating.

CONCLUSION

Overall, this research has highlighted several aspects of best practise when developing mHealth apps for the management of acute childhood illnesses, for increasing PU, PEU, PT and PS; and also, places importance on co-design.