Investigating the Quality of Persian Mobile Applications Related to Patients with Chronic Diseases

Today, the use of mobile applications to help self-care in patients with chronic diseases has increased. The objective of this study was to investigate the quality of Persian mobile applications related to patients with diabetes and hypertension.

This analytical study was conducted on all Persian mobile applications related to diabetes and hypertension in 2019. The mobile applications were searched in the Café Bazaar app store using the keywords such as “diabetes”, “blood sugar” and “blood pressure”. The APPLICATIONs Scoring System was used in this study. Two evaluators assessed the applications and in cases of disagreement a third evaluator was consulted.

In total, 179 Persian mobile applications were investigated. The mean and standard deviation of the quality of applications related to diabetes and hypertension based on the applied tools were 7.31±1.49 and 7.22±1.24 out of 16, respectively. More than 75% of these applications were comprehensive and less than 7% used authentic scientific resources. More than 80% of these applications were user-friendly and could work offline.

The results of this study showed that most of the Persian mobile applications related to diabetes and hypertension were at a moderate level. Most of the mobile application developers took into account the interactive aspects of applications but paid less attention to providing a scientific content. Evaluating the quality of health-related mobile applications is recommended to app store managers before low-quality applications are available to public.