Consumer Mobile Apps for Potential Drug-Drug Interaction Check: Systematic Review and Content Analysis Using the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS).

Ben Yb Kim,Anis Sharafoddini,Nam Tran,Joon Lee,Emily Y Wen

doi:10.2196/mhealth.8613

Abstract

BackgroundGeneral consumers can now easily access drug information and quickly check for potential drug-drug interactions (PDDIs) through mobile health (mHealth) apps. With aging population in Canada, more people have chronic diseases and comorbidities leading to increasing numbers of medications. The use of mHealth apps for checking PDDIs can be helpful in ensuring patient safety and empowerment.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to review the characteristics and quality of publicly available mHealth apps that check for PDDIs.MethodsApple App Store and Google Play were searched to identify apps with PDDI functionality. The apps’ general and feature characteristics were extracted. The Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) was used to assess the quality.ResultsA total of 23 apps were included for the review—12 from Apple App Store and 11 from Google Play. Only 5 of these were paid apps, with an average price of $7.19 CAD. The mean MARS score was 3.23 out of 5 (interquartile range 1.34). The mean MARS scores for the apps from Google Play and Apple App Store were not statistically different (P=.84). The information dimension was associated with the highest score (3.63), whereas the engagement dimension resulted in the lowest score (2.75). The total number of features per app, average rating, and price were significantly associated with the total MARS score.ConclusionsSome apps provided accurate and comprehensive information about potential adverse drug effects from PDDIs. Given the potentially severe consequences of incorrect drug information, there is a need for oversight to eliminate low quality and potentially harmful apps. Because managing PDDIs is complex in the absence of complete information, secondary features such as medication reminder, refill reminder, medication history tracking, and pill identification could help enhance the effectiveness of PDDI apps.

Highlights

Potential drug-drug interactions (PDDI) have been a prevalent source of preventable problems that can occur in any age group and increase costs to the health care systems [1]
Given the potentially severe consequences of incorrect drug information, there is a need for oversight to eliminate low quality and potentially harmful apps
This systematic review adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses systematic review protocol [21] as closely as possible, but it deviated in few instances because of the characteristics of mobile health (mHealth) app databases, which differ from scholarly reference databases for published articles

Summary

Introduction

Potential drug-drug interactions (PDDI) have been a prevalent source of preventable problems that can occur in any age group and increase costs to the health care systems [1]. An occurrence of drug-drug interaction (DDI) is defined as a clinical alteration of the exposure or response to a drug as a result of coadministration. DDIs can be clinically relevant when the result of the interaction warrants the attention of health http://mhealth.jmir.org/2018/3/e74/ XSLFO RenderX. DDIs have a profound impact on the safety of patients, and it has been found to be involved in 26% of all ADR-related hospital admissions [3]. General consumers can access drug information and quickly check for potential drug-drug interactions (PDDIs) through mobile health (mHealth) apps. The use of mHealth apps for checking PDDIs can be helpful in ensuring patient safety and empowerment

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Discussion

Conclusion