Content analysis of Iranian mobile healthcare applications for elderly

Population ageing in both developed and developing communities is increasing significantly due to resources such as improvement in healthcare and welfare, and decreasing of the birth rate. This group needs more care (medical or mental) that increases medical expenditures for governments, families and insurance institution, so policies that are related to the health of older adults are becoming more essential.With the rise of new media, more people became information literate. This great change provided an opportunity for societies to use new technology to cure, reinforce and empower elderly people. Smartphones and tablets are becoming more popular among older adults so a great number of applications have been written based on favorite operating systems (e.g. IOS and Android) for this increasing population. This study provided an overview of the 4 most popular Iranian health apps for the elderly and appraised each app’s usability and serviceability and communicational capability for their immediate audiences. Also, it tried to find out whether these apps are based on reinforcing elderly or management of diseases. Data came from content analysis of health and education apps in the Iranian mobile market. The main result of study is that Iranian healthcare mobile apps are more based on the treatment of diseases rather than reinforcing and empowering elderly. Another conclusion is that these apps try to communicate with relatives, family members or any other person who cares elderly, instead of communicating with older adults directly. Additionally, they are not technically applicable to the elderly.