Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2025 Jan 13;8(1):ooae159.
doi: 10.1093/jamiaopen/ooae159. eCollection 2025 Feb.

A scoping review of the reporting quality of reviews of commercially and publicly available mobile health apps

Norina Gasteiger  1   2 , Gill Norman  3 , Rebecca Grainger  4 , Sabine N van der Veer  2   5 , Lisa McGarrigle  1   6   7 , Debra Jones  1 , Charlotte Eost-Telling  1   2 , Amy Vercell  8 , Claire R Ford  1 , Syed Mustafa Ali  2   5 , Kate Law  8 , Qimeng Zhao  1 , Matthew Byerly  9 , Chunhu Shi  1   2 , Alan Davies  5 , Alex Hall  1 , Dawn Dowding  1   2
Affiliations
Review

A scoping review of the reporting quality of reviews of commercially and publicly available mobile health apps

Norina Gasteiger et al. JAMIA Open. .

Abstract

Objectives: There is no guidance to support the reporting of systematic reviews of mobile health (mhealth) apps (app reviews), so authors attempt to use/modify the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). There is a need for reporting guidance, building on PRISMA where appropriate, tailored to app reviews. The objectives were to describe the reporting quality of published mHealth app reviews, identify the need for, and develop potential candidate items for a reporting guideline.

Materials and methods: A scoping review following the Joanna Briggs Institute and Arksey and O'Malley approaches. App reviews were identified in January 2024 from SCOPUS, CINAHL, AMED, EMBASE, Medline, PsycINFO, ACM Digital Library, snowballing reference lists, and forward citation searches. Data were extracted into Excel and analyzed using descriptive statistics and content synthesis, using PRISMA items as a framework.

Results: One hundred and seventy-one app reviews were identified, published from 2013 to 2024. Protocols were developed for 11% of the reviews, and only 52% reported the geographical location of the app markets. Few reported the duplicate removal process (12%), device and operating system used (30%), or made clear recommendations for the best-rated apps (18%). Nineteen PRISMA items were not reported by most (>85%) reviews, and 4 were modified by >30% of the reviews. Involvement of patient/public contributors (4%) or other stakeholders (11%) was infrequent. Overall, 34 candidate items and 10 subitems were identified to be considered for a new guideline.

Discussion and conclusion: App reviews were inconsistently reported, and many PRISMA items were not deemed relevant. Consensus work is needed to revise and prioritize the candidate items for a reporting guideline for systematic app reviews.

Keywords: app review; mHealth; reporting; research methods; scoping review; smartphone.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

N.G., D.D., R.G., S.M.A., A.V., and L.M. conducted systematic mHealth app reviews which were included in this scoping review. None of the leading or corresponding authors extracted information from their own app reviews. There is no significant benefit (financial or otherwise) to the authors related to the inclusion of their own work.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Flow diagram depicting the search and screening process.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Word cloud representing the health topics explored in the mHealth app reviews.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Treemap showing the expected target users of the reviewed apps.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Tiles displaying the key outcomes of interest, and the measures and frameworks used.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Gasteiger N, Norman G, Grainger R, et al. Reporting quality of published reviews of commercial and publicly available mobile health apps (mHealth app reviews): a scoping review protocol. BMJ Open. 2024;14:e083364. 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-083364 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Davies A. An introduction to carrying out and appraising systematic reviews in healthcare. J Paramed Pract. 2023;15:1. 10.12968/jpar.2023.15.11.CPD1. - DOI
    1. Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ. 2021;372:n71. 10.1136/bmj.n71 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Grainger R, Devan H, Sangelaji B, et al. Issues in reporting of systematic review methods in health app-focused reviews: a scoping review. Health Inform J. 2020;26:2930-2945. 10.1177/1460458220952917 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ouzzani M, Hammady H, Fedorowicz Z, et al. Rayyan—a web and mobile app for systematic reviews. Syst Rev. 2016;5:210. 10.1186/s13643-016-0384-4 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources