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. 2020 Jul 24;12(8):2214.
doi: 10.3390/nu12082214.

What Healthcare Professionals Think of "Nutrition & Diet" Apps: An International Survey

Maria F Vasiloglou  1 , Stergios Christodoulidis  1   2 , Emilie Reber  3 , Thomai Stathopoulou  1 , Ya Lu  1 , Zeno Stanga  3 , Stavroula Mougiakakou  1   4
Affiliations

What Healthcare Professionals Think of "Nutrition & Diet" Apps: An International Survey

Maria F Vasiloglou et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Accurate dietary assessment is crucial for both the prevention and treatment of nutrition-related diseases. Since mobile-based dietary assessment solutions are promising, we sought to examine the acceptability of "Nutrition and Diet" (ND) apps by Healthcare Professionals (HCP), explore their preferences on apps' features and identify predictors of acceptance. A 23 question survey was developed by an interdisciplinary team and pilot-tested. The survey was completed by 1001 HCP from 73 countries and 6 continents. The HCP (dietitians: 833, doctors: 75, nurses: 62, other: 31/females: 847, males: 150, neither: 4) had a mean age (SD) of 34.4 (10.2) years and mean job experience in years (SD): 7.7 (8.2). There were 45.5% who have recommended ND apps to their clients/patients. Of those who have not yet recommended an app, 22.5% do not know of their existence. Important criteria for selecting an app were ease of use (87.1%), apps being free of charge (72.6%) and validated (69%). Significant barriers were the use of inaccurate food composition database (52%), lack of local food composition database support (48.2%) and tech-savviness (43.3%). Although the adoption of smartphones is growing and mobile health research is advancing, there is room for improvement in the recommendation of ND apps by HCP.

Keywords: dietary assessment; healthcare professionals; mHealth; mobile applications; smartphone; survey.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of the study design.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Flowchart of the participants’ inclusion.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Criteria for selecting a “Nutrition and Diet” app.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Importance of specific features for “Nutrition and Diet” apps.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Barriers for not selecting “Nutrition and Diet” apps.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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