This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Health apps have great potential in health care with changes
A study of health app use in the United States found that downloads were popular, but many users discontinue use, according to data published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research mHealth and uHealth.
In an analysis of an online survey, Paul Krebs, PhD, an assistant professor at NYU Langone Medical Center, and colleague found that 58.2% of participants had downloaded one health app and 41.6% had downloaded more than five health apps.
The survey included 36 questions which focused on sociodemographic characteristics, history of health app use, perceived effectiveness and reasons for stopping use as well as standard health questions. Of the 7,189 possible participants who visited the online survey, the researchers were left with a final sample of 1,604 after eliminating users who failed to complete the survey or overfilled demographic quotas.
Results showed that the most popular reasons for downloading health apps were tracking physical activity (52.8%), tracking food intake (47.6%), losing weight (46.8%) and learning exercises (34%). Participants who used the health apps were confident in data security and accuracy: 44% and 34.2% reported moderately or very much trusting security. They also found that 44.5% and 36.8% of the participants believed the recorded data were moderately or highly accurate, respectively.
Krebs and colleague also found that only 20.4% of participants indicated a doctor had recommended a health app. Most participants learned of apps via app stores (35%), friends and family (30.7%) and Internet searches (18.2%).
Additionally, 41.8% of participants had not downloaded a health app, citing lack of interest (27%), high cost (23.3%), lack of trust regarding personal data (15.4%), concern about using data (12.7%) and no need for an app (10.9%).
The 45.7% of users who reported that they had downloaded health apps that they no longer used referred to too much time to enter data (44.5%), loss of interest (40.5%), hidden costs (36.1%), too confusing (32.8%) and unwanted data sharing with friends (29%) as reasons why.
Participants were interested in using health apps to make appointments or communicate with their doctors (57.4%) or view their medical records (62.2%).
Krebs and colleague reported that users who downloaded a health app were more likely younger, Latino or Hispanic, and obese with a higher income and education past high school (P .05).
They concluded that while their research indicated critical issues for the future of health apps, there is great potential in addressing them.
"At present, apps are concentrated in the activity and weight-loss domain, which may limit perceptions of their utility for large portions of the population," Krebs and colleague wrote. "Pricing and data entry problems also emerged as important concerns. App development by for-profit companies is a primary pathway for creating innovative products, but companies need to better respond to these user barriers in order for these products to reach a broader population.
"For health care systems, significant interest exists among users for communicating with doctors and using apps to seek health care-related services," they continued. "The potential in this use of apps is great, and health care systems must embrace this technology and work through privacy and regulatory barriers to supply the services that patients are already requesting." – by Chelsea Frajerman Pardes
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.