Smartphone Apps for Pulmonary Hypertension: Systematic Search and Content Evaluation

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Digital Health
• Pulmonary Medicine

Background:

• Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a chronic condition requiring ongoing patient and healthcare professional (HCP) education and management.
• Smartphone-based mobile health (mHealth) applications offer potential for improved PH monitoring and management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and evaluate the quality of free mHealth apps for pulmonary hypertension (PH) available to patients and HCPs.
• To assess changes in app availability and quality between 2022 and 2023.

Main Methods:

• Systematic search of free PH apps on Android and iOS platforms from a Spanish IP address in October 2022 and 2023.
• Independent app analysis by two reviewers using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) framework.
• Statistical comparison of MARS scores using Mann-Whitney U tests.

Main Results:

• 21 unique PH apps were identified across both years; only 7 were updated between 2022 and 2023.
• Overall mean MARS quality was acceptable (3.1 in 2022, 3.3 in 2023), with functionality scoring highest and subjective quality lowest.
• iOS apps outperformed Android apps, and apps developed with HCP involvement showed significantly higher quality.

Conclusions:

• Current mHealth apps for PH are in early development, with generally acceptable but unrefined quality.
• HCP involvement is crucial for enhancing app quality and reliability.
• A need exists for continuous innovation, patient input, and rigorous clinical validation for effective PH mHealth integration.