TY - JOUR AU - Messner, Eva-Maria AU - Sturm, Niklas AU - Terhorst, Yannik AU - Sander, Lasse B AU - Schultchen, Dana AU - Portenhauser, Alexandra AU - Schmidbaur, Simone AU - Stach, Michael AU - Klaus, Jochen AU - Baumeister, Harald AU - Walter, Benjamin M PY - 2022 DA - 2022/10/5 TI - Mobile Apps for the Management of Gastrointestinal Diseases: Systematic Search and Evaluation Within App Stores JO - J Med Internet Res SP - e37497 VL - 24 IS - 10 KW - gastrointestinal diseases KW - mHealth KW - mobile health KW - MARS KW - Mobile Application Rating Scale KW - systematic review KW - app quality KW - gastrointestinal KW - mobile app KW - app AB - Background: Gastrointestinal diseases are associated with substantial cost in health care. In times of the COVID-19 pandemic and further digitalization of gastrointestinal tract health care, mobile health apps could complement routine health care. Many gastrointestinal health care apps are already available in the app stores, but the quality, data protection, and reliability often remain unclear. Objective: This systematic review aimed to evaluate the quality characteristics as well as the privacy and security measures of mobile health apps for the management of gastrointestinal diseases. Methods: A web crawler systematically searched for mobile health apps with a focus on gastrointestinal diseases. The identified mobile health apps were evaluated using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS). Furthermore, app characteristics, data protection, and security measures were collected. Classic user star rating was correlated with overall mobile health app quality. Results: The overall quality of the mobile health apps (N=109) was moderate (mean 2.90, SD 0.52; on a scale ranging from 1 to 5). The quality of the subscales ranged from low (mean 1.89, SD 0.66) to good (mean 4.08, SD 0.57). The security of data transfer was ensured only by 11 (10.1%) mobile health apps. None of the mobile health apps had an evidence base. The user star rating did not correlate with the MARS overall score or with the individual subdimensions of the MARS (all P>.05). Conclusions: Mobile health apps might have a positive impact on diagnosis, therapy, and patient guidance in gastroenterology in the future. We conclude that, to date, data security and proof of efficacy are not yet given in currently available mobile health apps. SN - 1438-8871 UR - https://www.jmir.org/2022/10/e37497 UR - https://doi.org/10.2196/37497 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36197717 DO - 10.2196/37497 ID - info:doi/10.2196/37497 ER -