Quality Assessment of Digital Health Apps: Umbrella Review

Area of Science:

• Digital health
• Health informatics
• Software quality assessment

Background:

• Growing number of digital health apps necessitates reliable quality assessment.
• Existing guidelines, methods, and metrics aim to mitigate risks associated with app usage.
• Quality assessment is vital for ensuring the safety and efficacy of digital health technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a comprehensive overview of current methods for digital health app quality assessment.
• To identify condition-agnostic frameworks applicable across all digital health apps.
• To synthesize existing knowledge on evaluating digital health app quality.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a systematic umbrella review of literature.
• Searched four major databases (Scopus, PubMed, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore).
• Followed PICOS and PRISMA methodologies for systematic reviews, including 15 review articles published between 2018-2023.

Main Results:

• Scoping reviews were the most common type (40%).
• Only 27% of reviews proposed assessment criteria; "Data privacy and/or security" was most frequent (87%).
• The Mobile App Rating Scale was the most utilized quality assessment framework.

Conclusions:

• A significant lack of consensus exists among current digital health app quality frameworks.
• Most identified frameworks do not encompass all essential assessment criteria.
• Implementing robust quality frameworks can help mitigate safety concerns associated with digital health apps.