Health-related Mobile Applications Research Articles

Mobile health: Is your next rehabilitation's specialist in your pocket?

The past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented surge in health-related mobile applications. However, most of these applications primarily focus on lifestyle domains such as sleep, fitness, and nutrition. A notable stride in this landscape involves the emergence of applications catering specifically to rehabilitation needs. This expert review aims to provide an encompassing overview of the wide spectrum of apps available for both assessment and rehabilitation. It delves into the existing constraints associated with these tools and deliberates on the potential avenues for future advancements and integration for future advancements and integration. The transformative potential of this mobile, affordable, and user-friendly technology in reshaping the field of rehabilitation sciences will be highlighted. This article underscores how harnessing these innovations can elevate accessibility and effectiveness in the rehabilitation processes, leading to improved overall outcomes and wellbeing.

UTILISATION OF HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AMONG DIETITIANS IN THE WORKPLACE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Dietitians play an important role in advocating lifestyle changes, such as dietary modifications and physical activity, to effectively prevent chronic diseases and avoid complications. The use of information technologies (IT) helps dietitians to engage with their patients. This paper explores the use health information technology among dietitians in the workplace. Four focus group sessions involving fifteen dietitians from hospitals and universities were conducted using an online platform. Participants were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to facilitate the interview to understand better dietitians' health IT practices. Interviews were videotaped, verbatim transcribed, and emerging themes and subthemes were thematically analysed. Inductive and deductive content analysis were used. Four themes emerged from the data: 1. utility of health IT tools, 2. factors that influence the use of health IT, 3. frequency of use, and 4. perceived barriers to adoption of health IT. Participants used health IT through health-related mobile applications, web-based platforms, and social media applications. Participants cited self-motivation, advertisement, training, peers, patients, content, ease of use, developers, quality, and functionality as factors in their use of health IT. Some barriers to utilising health IT included not disease-specific tools, inappropriate for all age groups, inaccurate information, inconvenient, required a paid version, and being overloaded with information. This study demonstrates how dietitians make use of health information technology in their practice. Support is required to overcome information technology barriers to be applied successfully in practice. It is important for dietitians to stay current with technological advancements. Dietitians will be able to stay relevant and continue to support evidence-based practice if they do so now and in the future.

The Intensity Use of mHealth Apps and its Relation to Nutrition Knowledge, Healthy Eating Self-Efficacy, and Positive Body Image

Abstract—In terms of mobile apps, mHealth technology might enhance public health. However, despite the development of hundreds of health-related mobile applications, few studies have studied their relationship to psychological constructs. This study aimed to evaluate the association between the intensity of mHealth app use and nutrition knowledge, healthy-eating self-efficacy, and positive body image among Jordanian students and to measure their levels. In the first semester of the academic year 2022-2023, a structured, self-administered web-based questionnaire containing valid and reliable measures (i.e., positive body image scale, healthy eating self-efficacy, general nutrition knowledge questionnaire, and the adopted intensity use of mHealth apps scale) was administered to 414 undergraduates. The findings reported that their usage of mHealth-related mobile applications was low, as they had inadequate nutrition knowledge, low healthy-eating self-efficacy, and a moderate positive body image. The Pearson correlation analysis revealed a significant and positive correlation between the degree of usage of health-related mobile applications and nutrition knowledge, healthy eating self-efficacy, and positive body image (p<0.01). These findings underscore the need to promote healthy eating self-efficacy and positive body image among students and to improve their nutrition knowledge. In addition, these results advise decision-makers to encourage students to include mHealth applications in their daily routines to benefit their health.

Validity and Reliability of Vis-Screen Application: A Smartphone-Based Distance Vision Testing for Visual Impairment and Blindness Vision Screening.

Background and Objectives: The health-related mobile applications (app) might assist in promoting inclusive health and tele-treatment, especially for the less severe diseases. In this paper, a study had been done to determine the app's reliability in terms of raters and the app's agreement with the Snellen chart. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional sectional study was conducted between November 2019 and September 2020. Participants were selected via purposive sampling from selected communities in Terengganu state. All participants underwent vision testing with the Vis-Screen app and Snellen chart for validity and reliability accordingly. Results: A total of 408 participants were involved, with a mean age of 29.3. The sensitivity of the presenting vision of the right eye (PVR) ranged from 55.6% to 88.4%, with specificity between 94.7% to 99.3%, while the positive and negative predictive values were between 57.9% and 81.7% and 96.8% and 99.0%, respectively. The positive likelihood ratios ranged between 16.73 and 73.89, whereas the negative likelihood ratios ranged from 0.12 to 0.45. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for all cut-off points ranged between 0.93 and 0.97, and the optimum cut-off point was at 6/12. The kappa values for intra-rater and inter-rater were 0.85 and 0.75, respectively, while the app's reliability with the Snellen chart was 0.61. Conclusions: Vis-Screen was concluded to be valid and reliable for use as a screening tool for detecting individuals with visual impairment and blindness in the community. A valid and reliable portable vision screener like Vis-Screen will help expand the eye care feasibility while providing similar accuracy as the conventional charts in clinical practices.

DESIGNING AND DEVELOPING A PERSUASIVE MOBILE APPLICATION FOR ORAL HEALTH PROMOTION: A METHODOLOGY

Maintaining excellent oral hygiene could be very challenging, but it can be aided by employing appropriate motivational approaches. Flossing is one of the critical oral hygiene habits. This paper discusses the design and development of mobile application that could motivate user to learn, perform, and maintain optimal oral hygiene. Applying persuasive design in the development of oral health-related mobile applications could promote this good habit. Thus, the primary focus of this paper is to elaborate on the methodology of finding out a set of design principles under persuasive design for developing a mobile application that could engage user in maintaining good oral hygiene in general. The mobile application also aims to motivate user to take care of their oral hygiene through flossing activities. This paper discusses the design solution through a human-centred process; Design Thinking method. There are five phases in Design Thinking; however, this paper focuses on elaborating the first four phases: Empathy, Define, Ideate, and Prototype. 44 respondents were involved in the process of acquiring the requirements for design and development of a persuasive mobile application for promoting oral health. Finally, a high-fidelity prototype of the mobile application was produced and named as the FlossDance App.

Determining factors affecting the perceived usability of air pollution detection mobile application “AirVisual” in Thailand: A structural equation model forest classifier approach

Air pollution has been evident worldwide. It presented numerous pieces of evidence that affect health-related adverse effects causing diseases and even death and the development of technology has helped monitor the exposure of people to air pollution. This research analyzed factors affecting the perceived usability of air pollution detection on the ‘AirVisual’ mobile application based on the integrated model of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2). A total of 416 participants voluntarily answered a self-administered survey consisting of adapted constructs covering factors such as Performance expectancy (PE), Effort expectancy (EE), Social influence (SI), Facilitating conditions (FC), Habit (HB), Perceived risk (PR), Perceived trust (PT), Intention to use (IU), and Perceived usability (PU). Structural Equation Modeling and Random Forest Classifier were utilized to determine factors affecting perceived usability of the ‘AirVisual’ mobile application. The results showed that PE, EE, SI, and FC were key factors leading to very high PU among users. Moreover, IU was seen to be the most significant factor affecting PU, followed by PT, PR, and HB. This study is one of the first studies that considered the evaluation of usability among health-related mobile applications covering air pollution. The results and the framework utilized in this model may be applied to evaluate other factors and applications related to health among people. Lastly, this study can also be extended to evaluate other mobile applications worldwide.

Proposal of a New Rating Concept for Digital Health Applications in Orthopedics and Traumatology.

Health-related mobile applications (apps) are rapidly increasing in number. There is an urgent need for assessment tools and algorithms that allow the usability and content criteria of these applications to be objectively assessed. The aim of this work was to establish and validate a concept for orthopedic societies to rate health apps to set a quality standard for their safe use. An objective rating concept was created, consisting of nine quality criteria. A self-declaration sheet for app manufacturers was designed. Manufacturers completed the self-declaration, and the app was examined by independent internal reviewers. The pilot validation and analysis were performed on two independent health applications. An algorithm for orthopedic societies was created based on the experiences in this study flow. "Sprunggelenks-App" was approved by the reviewers with 45 (98%) fulfilled criteria and one (2%) unfulfilled criterion. "Therapie-App" was approved, with 28 (61%) met criteria, 6 (13%) unfulfilled criteria and 12 (26%) criteria that could not be assessed. The self-declaration completed by the app manufacturer is recommended, followed by a legal and technical rating performed by an external institution. When rated positive, the societies' internal review using independent raters can be performed. In case of a positive rating, a visual certification can be granted to the manufacturer for a certain time frame. An objective rating algorithm is proposed for the assessment of digital health applications. This can help societies to improve the quality assessment, quality assurance and patient safety of those apps. The proposed concept must be further validated for inter-rater consistency and reliability.

Utilizing Structural Equation Modeling-Artificial Neural Network Hybrid Approach in Determining Factors Affecting Perceived Usability of Mobile Mental Health Application in the Philippines.

Mental health problems have emerged as one of the biggest problems in the world and one of the countries that has been seen to be highly impacted is the Philippines. Despite the increasing number of mentally ill Filipinos, it is one of the most neglected problems in the country. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors affecting the perceived usability of mobile mental health applications. A total of 251 respondents voluntarily participated in the online survey we conducted. A structural equation modeling and artificial neural network hybrid was applied to determine the perceived usability (PRU) such as the social influence (SI), service awareness (SA), technology self-efficacy (SE), perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), convenience (CO), voluntariness (VO), user resistance (UR), intention to use (IU), and actual use (AU). Results indicate that VO had the highest score of importance, followed by CO, PEOU, SA, SE, SI, IU, PU, and ASU. Having the mobile application available and accessible made the users perceive it as highly beneficial and advantageous. This would lead to the continuous usage and patronage of the application. This result highlights the insignificance of UR. This study was the first study that considered the evaluation of mobile mental health applications. This study can be beneficial to people who have mental health disorders and symptoms, even to health government agencies. Finally, the results of this study could be applied and extended among other health-related mobile applications worldwide.

Factors Influencing the Perceived Effectiveness of COVID-19 Risk Assessment Mobile Application "MorChana" in Thailand: UTAUT2 Approach.

COVID-19 contact-tracing mobile applications have been some of the most important tools during the COVID-19 pandemic. One preventive measure that has been incorporated to help reduce the virus spread is the strict implementation of utilizing a COVID-19 tracing application, such as the MorChana mobile application of Thailand. This study aimed to evaluate the factors affecting the actual usage of the MorChana mobile application. Through the integration of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2), latent variables such as performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), hedonic motivation (HM), habit (HB), perceived risk (PCR), self-efficacy (SEF), privacy (PR), trust (TR), and understanding COVID-19 (U) were considered to measure the intention to use MorChana (IU) and the actual usage (AU) of the mobile application. This study considered 907 anonymous participants who voluntarily answered an online self-administered survey collected via convenience sampling. The results show that IU presented the highest significant effect on AU, followed by HB, HM, PR, FC, U, SEF, PE, EE, TR, and SI. This is evident due to the strict implementation of using mobile applications upon entering any area of the vicinity. Moreover, PCR was not seen to be a significant latent factor affecting AU. This study is the first to have evaluated mobile contact tracing in Thailand. The integrated framework can be applied and extended to determine factors affecting COVID-19 tracing applications in other countries. Moreover, the findings of this study could be applied to other health-related mobile applications worldwide.

Determinant factors in adopting mobile health application in healthcare by nurses

BackgroundMobile applications are among effective learning tools and have a significant role in transferring information and knowledge to nurses. The current study was carried to identify the factors affecting nurses’ use of practical health related mobile applications in education and patient interaction based on the combined Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Diffusion of Innovation (DOI).MethodThe study is a descriptive-analytical study with a cross-sectional method. The research population includes nurses working at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences hospitals, 150 of which were selected as the research sample using simple and available sampling. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire, the validity and reliability of which were confirmed (α = 0.9). Data analysis was carried out using a correlation test and regression analysis by applying SPSS v16 software.ResultsThe findings show that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have a direct and significant effect on the rate of using mobile applications by nurses (P value ≤ 0.01), [(β = 0.52), (β = 0.40)]. Other findings indicate that relative advantage, compatibility, trialability and observability, have a direct and significant effect on nurses’ use of mobile applications, while complicatedness does not have a significant effect.ConclusionThe current study identifies the effective factors in nurses’ use of health-related mobile applications based on an integrated model of TAM and DOI. Designers of mobile applications should consider these factors in designing and developing programs so that mobile applications can successfully fulfill their purpose in healthcare.

Can we dream of an integrated pain management app for cancer patients?

The cancer burden continues to grow globally, exerting tremendous physical, emotional, and financial strain on individuals, families, communities, and health systems. The number of health-related mobile applications (apps) is increasing rapidly. We searched for pain apps specific for cancer patients on App Store for iOS devices and Google Play for Android devices. An integrated pain management app (IPMA) is the need of the hour, which will not only provide a platform to users to assess their pain scores but also assess other associated symptoms and can provide a step-wise assessment to their symptomatology. This can offset the patient burden in the outpatient pain clinic and reduce the number of follow-up visits by addressing common concerns that can be tackled easily at home.

Health-Related Goal Setting and Achievement Among Veterans with High Technology Adoption.

There is increasing recognition of the importance of supporting patients in their health-related goals. Patient-provider discussions and health-related mobile applications (apps) can support patients to pursue health goals; however, their impact on patient goal setting and achievement is not well understood. To examine the relationships between the following: (1) patient demographics, patient-provider discussions, and health-related goal setting and achievement, and (2) patient mobile health app use and goal achievement. Cross-sectional survey. Veterans who receive Veterans Health Administration (VA) healthcare and are users of VA patient-facing technology. Veteran demographics, goal-related behaviors, and goal achievement. Veterans were invited to participate in a telephone survey. VA administrative data were linked to survey data for additional health and demographic information. Logistic regression models were run to identify factors that predict health-related goal setting and achievement. Among respondents (n=2552), 75% of patients indicated having set health goals in the preceding 6 months and approximately 42% reported achieving their goal. Men (vs. women) had lower odds of setting goals (OR: 0.71; CI95: 0.53-0.97), as did individuals with worse (vs. better) health (OR: 0.18; CI95: 0.04-0.88). Individuals with advanced education-some college/college degrees, and post-college degrees (vs. no college education)-demonstrated higher odds of setting goals (OR: 1.35; CI95: 1.01-1.79; OR: 1.71; CI95: 1.28-2.28, respectively). Those who reported having discussed their goals with their providers were more likely to set goals (OR: 3.60; CI95: 2.97-4.35). Patient mobile health app use was not statistically associated with goal achievement. Efforts to further promote patient-led goal setting should leverage the influence of patient-provider conversations. Use of patient-facing technologies, specifically mobile health apps, may facilitate goal-oriented care, but further work is needed to examine the potential benefits of apps to support patient goals, particularly if providers discuss and endorse use of those apps with patients.

Rapid Review of Available Covid-19 Mobile Apps

Background: On 11th March 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared the state of a pandemic for COVID-19, requiring a global response to manage and control the transmission, spread, and impact of this pandemic1 which threatens human lives, employment, and the global economy2. COVID-19 is the first pandemic to occur since the widespread use of smartphones, even in low- and middle-income countries3. Thus, for the first time, the collection of individual-level data in near real-time directly from affected community members is possible using health-related mobile applications. Government and private companies have launched applications and websites all over the world with aims that can include informing populations to support behavior change or appropriate health-seeking behavior, tracking transmission hotspots, or in support of test and trace/contact-tracing interventions. For COVID-19 patients, or persons concerned about infection risk, apps can help with remote assessment and the provision of care. For people not infected, especially persons at high risk of being affected (e.g. elderly or persons with comorbidities), mobile apps can provide an access to routine care without the risk of exposure in hospitals. If successful and implemented at a sufficient scale these applications have huge potential to inform global and country-level responses4. The various purposes of such applications can be categorized into symptom checkers, information dissemination, news updates, quarantine enforcement5, remote interaction with medical professionals6, reporting of test results, contact tracing, and even showing locations of individuals with positive test results known nearby infections7. As a first step in evaluating the potential opportunities, benefits, and risks of apps designed with the intention or ability to collect COVID-19 related data from the general public we conducted this rapid review of what mobile and web-based applications are currently available with this functionality and a summary of their key features. Objectives: Aim: To provide a resource of what applications are currently available globally in which the intended user group/s includes the general public and from whom data is collected with the potential for analysis supporting the pandemic response. Result: The survey was completed by 589 volunteers between 1st May to 2nd September 2020. Data were reported from 57 countries. Seven countries did not find any applications related to COVID-19 which included Afghanistan, Armenia, Ghana, Philippines, Serbia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe (Table 1). Of all 309 available applications, 45 applications (14.6%) are available in Asia. 109 applications (35.3%) in Europe, 10 applications (3.2%) in Oceania, 24 applications (7.8%) in South America, 54 applications (17.5%) in Africa, and 67 applications (21.7%) in North America. 132 were reported to be available on the Android platform, 158 on the IOS platform and 19 reported to be available on both platforms in the same country. Developer information was not reported for 35 applications (11.3%). Users review scores evaluating the applications were available for 261 applications (84.5%). Most applications are free to install and to use all the functions (276 apps, 89.3%).

Development of a Multidimensional App-Quality Assessment Tool for Health-Related Apps (AQUA)

Background
 A multitude of health-related mobile applications is available to the public in app stores. Many of these apps were not developed by health professionals and do not keep what they promise. To facilitate a safe handling and use of such apps, it is important to assess their quality in a standardized way. Some instruments for app quality assessment exist, although they have some limitations, which we want to improve on with this new assessment tool.
 Objectives
 The objective of this paper is to introduce a new multidimensional criteria-based tool for the quality assessment of health-related apps.
 Method
 Based on existing app-quality assessment tools and guidelines for evaluating health-related app-quality, items were constructed to assess objective and subjective app-quality. A pretest in form of cognitive testing was conducted with six participants and some items were optimized.
 Results
 An expert and a user version of AQUA were developed in English and German language. The expert version consists of 31 items in the seven dimensions Usability, User Engagement, Content, Visual Design, Therapeutic Quality, Security and Information. The user version consists of 34 items and additionally includes the dimension Impact.
 Conclusion
 AQUA is a brief multidimensional app-quality assessment tool that can be used for the quality assessment of health-related and mental health-related apps by experts and app-users.

Patient Use of Cardiovascular Devices and Apps: Are We Getting Our Money's Worth?

The evolution of technology makes it likely that a large number of people will invest in and use health-related mobile applications and wearable devices. Yet the question remains: Do these technology-based interventions modify health behavior and improve health…and are we getting our money's worth? The vast majority of studies concerning health-related apps and wearable devices have small sample sizes and short time spans of 6 months or less, so it is not clear if these durations were determined by lack of consistent use over time. Furthermore, many of the most popular applications have not been subjected to randomized trials. Overall, the small demonstrated improvements in outcomes are often associated with professional involvement from clinicians, coaches, or diabetes educators provided in conjunction with use of mobile health (mHealth) platforms. This paper explores the use of mHealth technologies that address cardiovascular disease/prevention (eg, diabetes, diet, physical activity, and associated weight loss) and discusses the lack of adequate evidence to support even minimal patient investment in mobile applications or wearable devices at this time.

Security Challenges in Android mHealth Apps Permissions: A Case Study of Persian Apps

Introduction: In this study, Persian Android mobile health (mhealth) applications were studied to describe usage of dangerous permissions in health related mobile applications. So the most frequently normal and dangerous permissions used in mhealth applications were reviewed.Materials and Methods: We wrote a PHP script to crawl information of Android apps in “health” and “medicine” categories from Cafebazaar app store. Then permission information of these application were extracted.Results: 11627 permissions from 3331 studied apps were obtained. There was at least one dangerous permission in 48% of reviewed apps. 41% of free applications, 53% of paid applications and 71% of in-purchase applications contained dangerous permissions. 1321 applications had writing permission to external storage of phone (40%), 1288 applications had access to read from external storage (39%), 422 applications could read contact list and ongoing calls (13%) and 188 applications were allowed to access phone location (5%).Conclusion: Most of Android permissions are harmless but significant number of the apps have at least one dangerous permission which increase the security risk. So paying attention to the permissions requested in the installation step is the best way to ensure that the application installed on your phone can only access what you want.

Health guidance for prevention of lifestyle-related diseases using health-related mobile applications

Abstract Issue Lifestyle modifications are essential for the prevention of lifestyle-related diseases such as hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, and type 2 diabetes. Healthcare providers in Japan are required to use information and communications technologies (ICT), such as health-related mobile applications (mHealth apps), in health guidance. Description of the Problem To understand the results of and issues in health guidance, two searches were conducted to identify the domains of health guidance provided using ICT. We searched the PubMed and Japan Medical Abstracts Society databases to identify articles published from 2000-2018. The first search identified frameworks of health guidance provided using ICT. The second search identified primary studies about using mHealth apps published between 2000 and 2018. The sample comprised 22 unique programs from 38 primary studies. The following research questions were explored: 1) What is the purpose of using the mHealth app? 2) Is there a significant difference in the effect of using the mHealth app instead of face-to-face communication? Results The mHealth app was used to enhance convenience and to improve or modify lifestyle. The latter included self-monitoring, typing health information, providing knowledge, sharing information, providing encouragement and praise, and correction of action plans. Some positive effects were observed, including compensating for insufficient information, enhancing self-management, and improving degrees of satisfaction of users. Only two programs did not report a significant difference in the effect of using the mHealth app as compared to face-to-face communication. Lessons This review showed that the frequency of typing information about diet and exercise appeared to be related to the prevention of primary lifestyle-related diseases and the improvement of self-management behaviour. Key messages Use of the mHealth app for providing health guidance might enhance continuous support for self-monitoring and self-management behaviour. Use the mHealth app for providing encouragement and praise might promote a smooth conversation, which in turn would facilitate appropriate self-management behaviour.

Effectiveness of Mobile App-Based Interventions to Support Diabetes Self-Management: A Systematic Review

Introduction: Diabetes is a major health problem worldwide due to its rapidly growing prevalence and high disease burden. Nowadays, the evolution of mobile technology provides a large number of health-related mobile applications (apps) mainly focusing on the self-management of diabetes. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the effectiveness of mobile app-based self-management interventions on clinical and/or psychological outcomes in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.Methods: A systematic search of four databases (Scopus, Medline, CINAHL, and Proquest) was conducted using the terms "diabetes" AND "self-management" AND "mobile applications" OR "mobile based" OR “smartphone”. Studies published in English from 2016 to 2020 were considered. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes that reported any of the study outcomes were included. Using our search strategies, we identified 4339 articles. After removing duplicate studies, a total of 12 articles met the inclusion and exclusion criteria included in the review.Results: The majority measured self-monitoring of blood glucose monitoring frequency, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and/or psychological or cognitive outcomes. The most positive findings were associated with mobile app-based health interventions as a behavioral outcome, with some benefits found for clinical and/or psychological diabetes self-management outcomes for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus.Conclusion: Therefore, more research with larger and longer studies to develop the ideal mobile-app based self-management tool for diabetes is needed.

CN17 - Using mobile-based health care applications outcomes: Mini systematic review

BackgroundThe mobile application is a valuable tool in the transmission of information in terms of having easy access in our daily lives and hosting applications containing information specific to many diseases. In a systematic analysis of the studies conducted on smartphones, it was determined that the method of using telephone in two studies was used, six people were reached via message and mobile application was used in five studies. MethodsThis systematic review is reported in line with the PRISMA. A total of 24 abstracts were retrieved through a systematic search for articles published in the six databases of PubMed, Cochrane CENTRAL Register of Controlled Trials, Ovid MEDLINE, Science Direct, ULAKBIM Turkish Medical Database, and Google Scholar. Only original resdearch articles included, in having a sample of health related mobile applications. ResultsTwenty four articles were chosen based on the inclusion criteria by researcher. The results of this review related that health related mobile applications. All articles states that health related mobile applications contribute to the individual and plays an important role in health development. ConclusionsIt is determined that researches about mobile health CARE applications in the world should be used in this subject. It can be said that the completed studies are small-sample and very specific, and that large-scale studies with larger samples can contribute significantly to future patient care. Legal entity responsible for the studyAydanur Aydin. FundingHas not received any funding. DisclosureAll authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Digital Nephrology

Clinical Nephrology faces considerable structural challenges. Digitization can be a critical catalyst to better address the needs of patients and their healthcare providers with new system solutions. Improved communication is the key driver. Through health-related mobile applications, big data and machine learning, as well as natural language processing, treatment processes can be rethought and redesigned.