How Smart are Smartphone Apps for Smoking Cessation? A Content Analysis.
Bettina B Hoeppner1, Susanne S Hoeppner2, Lourah Seaboyer3
1Center for Addiction Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA; bhoeppner@mgh.harvard.edu.
Summary
Most smoking cessation apps offer limited tailored support. Features like interactive alerts and responsiveness to user quit status are linked to higher app popularity and user ratings.
Area of Science:
- Digital Health
- Mobile Health Interventions
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Smartphone technology offers a platform for personalized smoking cessation support.
- Current research lacks clarity on the extent of tailoring in existing smoking cessation apps.
- The relationship between app tailoring, popularity, and user-rated quality is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the content of Android smoking cessation apps for tailoring features.
- To determine the association between app tailoring and app popularity.
- To investigate the link between tailoring and user-rated quality of smoking cessation apps.
Main Methods:
- Content analysis of 225 Android smoking cessation apps downloaded between October 2013 and May 2014.
- Recording app popularity (downloads) and user-rated quality (stars) from Google Play.
- Coding the presence of tailoring features within the 5As framework (ask, advise, assess, assist, arrange follow-up).
Main Results:
- Apps predominantly offered basic tools (calculators, trackers) with limited tailoring.
- On average, apps addressed 2.1 of the 5As and used tailoring for only 0.7 of the 5As.
- Tailoring features, interactive elements, and responsiveness to quit status positively correlated with app popularity and higher user ratings.
Conclusions:
- Publicly available smartphone smoking cessation apps are often not highly personalized.
- These apps frequently lack tailored feedback, despite user preference for such features.
- Enhancing tailoring in smoking cessation apps could improve their engagement and effectiveness.
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