Understanding Device Integrations Within Diabetes Apps: Mixed Methods Analysis of App Features and User Reviews

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Medical Informatics
• Diabetes Technology

Background:

• Diabetes management requires significant data collection and self-care for insulin administration.
• Mobile applications aid in tracking blood glucose influencing factors and integrate with devices like continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps.
• Despite reducing user burden, existing diabetes apps face reliability and trustworthiness issues, posing risks for safety-critical systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the landscape of device integrations within diabetes management apps.
• To assess how well these integrations meet user needs in a self-management ecosystem.
• To identify key issues users encounter with popular diabetes apps and their features.

Main Methods:

• Systematic search of Android and iPhone app stores identified 21 diabetes apps with integrations.
• Detailed analysis of 602 user reviews, recording sentiment, features, issues, and context.
• Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were used to evaluate features, issues, and user trends.

Main Results:

• Device integrations (43%), tracking (32.2%), and data logging (14.3%) were key features.
• A majority of reviews (62.8%) reported issues, with 54.3% being negative.
• Top integration issues included connectivity problems (25.1%), data management failures (22%), and unreliable notifications (9.2%).

Conclusions:

• Diabetes management apps must be reliable and trustworthy to be beneficial for self-care.
• User reviews highlight significant challenges with current app integrations and features.
• Findings inform future development of diabetes apps and artificial pancreas systems.