Abstract
With over 10,000 mental health- and psychiatry-related smartphone apps available today and expanding, there is a need for reliable and valid evaluation of these digital tools. However, the updating and nonstatic nature of smartphone apps, expanding privacy concerns, varying degrees of usability, and evolving interoperability standards, among other factors, present serious challenges for app evaluation. In this article, we provide a narrative review of various schemes toward app evaluations, including commercial app store metrics, government initiatives, patient-centric approaches, point-based scoring, academic platforms, and expert review systems. We demonstrate that these different approaches toward app evaluation each offer unique benefits but often do not agree to each other and produce varied conclusions as to which apps are useful or not. Although there are no simple solutions, we briefly introduce a new initiative that aims to unify the current controversies in app elevation called CHART (Collaborative Health App Rating Teams), which will be further discussed in a second article in this series.
References
Nov 19, 2013·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Tara DonkerHelen Christensen
Jul 6, 2014·Addiction Science & Clinical Practice·Mikael GajeckiClaes Andersson
Sep 15, 2014·Current Psychiatry Reports·Tasha Glenn, Scott Monteith
Mar 12, 2015·JMIR MHealth and UHealth·Stoyan R StoyanovMadhavan Mani
Aug 19, 2015·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Jennifer NicholasHelen Christensen
Aug 21, 2015·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Jessica S AnckerEsther Wei
Aug 21, 2015·JMIR MHealth and UHealth·Madhavan ManiStoyan R Stoyanov
Sep 25, 2015·Schizophrenia Bulletin·Joseph FirthAlison R Yung
Sep 26, 2015·BMC Medicine·Kit HuckvaleJosip Car
Nov 6, 2015·JMIR MHealth and UHealth·Paul Krebs, Dustin T Duncan
Jul 1, 2014·JMIR Mental Health·John TorousMatcheri Keshavan
Nov 7, 2015·JMIR Mental Health·Jason E OwenJulia E Hoffman
Feb 7, 2016·The Lancet. Psychiatry·John Torous, Joseph Firth
Feb 13, 2016·JMIR MHealth and UHealth·Adam C PowellAdam B Landman
Apr 14, 2016·PloS One·Mark Erik LarsenHelen Christensen
Apr 21, 2016·JMIR MHealth and UHealth·Veronica RamirezGina Rossetti
May 3, 2016·The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry·John B TorousRobert Boland
May 6, 2016·JMIR Mental Health·Katrina GayKen Duckworth
Jun 12, 2016·JMIR MHealth and UHealth·Stoyan R StoyanovHollie Wilson
Jun 23, 2016·BMJ Open·Sophie WalshStefan Priebe
Jul 16, 2016·Journal of General Internal Medicine·Urmimala SarkarDavid W Bates
Aug 11, 2016·JMIR MHealth and UHealth·Mark Erik LarsenHelen Christensen
Nov 16, 2016·Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal·John A NaslundStephen J Bartels
Nov 24, 2016·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Dan RobothamTil Wykes
Dec 7, 2016·Health Affairs·Karandeep SinghDavid W Bates
Dec 22, 2016·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Patricia A AreanJoaquin A Anguera
Mar 23, 2017·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Amit BaumelFred Muench
Apr 7, 2017·JAMA Psychiatry·John Torous, Laura Weiss Roberts
Apr 9, 2017·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Jennifer NicholasHelen Christensen
Apr 30, 2017·Journal of Affective Disorders·Joseph FirthJerome Sarris
May 16, 2017·Depression and Anxiety·Madalina SucalaDaniel David
Jun 25, 2017·The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry : Official Journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry·Lisa RosenfeldIpsit V Vahia
Jul 8, 2017·JMIR Mental Health·John Torous, Spencer Roux
Jul 28, 2017·Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health·Louise ThorntonFrances Kay-Lambkin
Aug 2, 2017·The American Journal of Psychiatry·Luis R SandovalMatcheri S Keshavan
Sep 25, 2017·World Psychiatry : Official Journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA)·Joseph FirthJerome Sarris
Sep 28, 2017·Evidence-based Mental Health·Simon LeighChris Mimnagh
Citations
May 21, 2018·Current Psychiatry Reports·Joseph FirthJerome Sarris
Jul 16, 2019·NPJ Digital Medicine·Andrew D CarloPatricia A Areán
Jun 25, 2020·JMIR Mental Health·Jamie M MarshallWarren Bartik
Jul 6, 2020·JMIR Research Protocols·Jamie M MarshallWarren Bartik
Aug 4, 2020·JAMA Network Open·Andrew D CarloPatricia A Areán
Jan 15, 2020·NPJ Digital Medicine·Pierre PhilipJean-Arthur Micoulaud-Franchi
Mar 16, 2019·Frontiers in Psychiatry·Liza HoffmanJohn Torous
Mar 28, 2020·JMIR Mental Health·John TorousJoseph Firth
Sep 15, 2020·Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science·Samantha L ConnollyChristopher J Miller
Aug 12, 2020·BJPsych Open·Heather L O'BrienErin E Michalak
Dec 6, 2019·Frontiers in Psychiatry·Jamie M MarshallWarren Bartik
Aug 30, 2018·Academic Psychiatry : the Journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry·Peter Yellowlees
Feb 12, 2019·Healthcare Management Forum·Shalini Lal
Jan 7, 2021·JMIR Mental Health·Elsa A Friis-HealyScott H Kollins
Jul 23, 2019·Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews·Elisa BrietzkeClaudio N Soares
Sep 26, 2019·The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry·Jamie M MarshallWarren Bartik
Sep 15, 2020·JMIR MHealth and UHealth·Noy AlonJohn Torous
Feb 16, 2021·Bipolar Disorders·Tijana Sagorac GruichichAmy L Cochran
Mar 2, 2021·Journal of Psychiatric Research·Emma MortonErin E Michalak
Jan 7, 2021·NPJ Digital Medicine·Pierre PhilipJean-Arthur Micoulaud-Franchi
Apr 1, 2021·Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA·Martin HensherAnna Peeters
Nov 11, 2019·Behaviour Research and Therapy·Akash R WasilJohn R Weisz
Jun 1, 2021·Journal of Mental Health·Erica Camacho, John Torous
Jul 13, 2021·Digital Health·Harriet UnsworthAlexia Tonnel
Aug 8, 2021·Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA·John Torous, Sarah Lagan
Aug 15, 2021·Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA·Martin HensherAnna Peeters
Sep 4, 2021·Curēus·Sindhuja Sudarshan, Seema Mehrotra
Oct 30, 2021·Frontiers in Digital Health·Blanche WiesMarcello Ienca