Abstract
Purpose: Mobile health (mHealth) solutions have become an inevitable element of the healthcare landscape. The recommendation and use of mHealth is important, but it is often underutilised. This study was conducted in England. It aimed to determine the use and recommendation of mHealth apps by pharmacists, the public’s perceptions of mHealth apps in general, and the awareness and use of health apps by diabetic patients in particular. Methods: The study used a mixed research approach, utilising a sequence of survey-based questionnaires with pharmacists and the general public, followed by semi-structured interviews with diabetic patients. Results: Pharmacists’ questionnaires revealed that 56% of the respondents were aware of health apps, 60% of which recommended them to patients. Over 76% of the individuals owned a smartphone. The types of applications that saw the most use from the general public were health and lifestyle apps (24%), social apps (19%), followed by news (18%). Although eight out of nine diabetic patients owned a smartphone, only three used diabetes apps. Diabetic patients also suggested an interest in using diabetes apps to aid in optimising care via the utilisation of visual aids, reminders, recording patient data, social coaching, and remote collaboration with healthcare professionals (HCPs), but time was seen as the biggest obstacle to using a diabetes mHealth application. Conclusion: Despite the growing number of mHealth apps, the level of awareness and usability of such apps by patients and pharmacists was still relatively low. Nevertheless, the majority who used health apps found them to be beneficial, and the public agreed that it helped them to live a healthier lifestyle. Therefore, health apps have great potential in health promotion. Pharmacists are ideally placed to promote them and make patients more aware of them. To increase the use of these apps, it is necessary to first increase awareness and knowledge of these apps, both to the public and to healthcare professionals.
Highlights
IntroductionMHealth is important because it makes healthcare practices accessible to the public through mobile communication technologies in a variety of ways (e.g., providing healthcare information, collecting health data, observing patients, etc.) [1,2]
Mobile health is an essential element of electronic health
Given that the number of people living with diabetes in the U.K. has tipped over the 4 million mark, patients with diabetes were targeted in order to grasp the scale of their awareness and usage of Mobile health (mHealth) applications to manage their condition [12]
Summary
MHealth is important because it makes healthcare practices accessible to the public through mobile communication technologies in a variety of ways (e.g., providing healthcare information, collecting health data, observing patients, etc.) [1,2]. MHealth apps cover communication between users and healthcare systems (with call centers, and appointment and exact treatment reminders), monitoring and surveillance (with patient monitoring applications and surveys), and information access (with health records and medical diagnoses). MHealth aims to improve care by making health information accessible for patients with long-term conditions such as diabetes. The U.K. is becoming increasingly connected via the use of smartphones; research suggests that these are the most widespread of devices used by adults for online access. Since 2015, the number of adults who own a smartphone has increased to 71%. Among young adults under 34 years old, the percentage is even higher, estimated at around 90% [4]
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