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Papers by Alexandra Portenhauser

Research paper thumbnail of Psychometric evaluation of the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Mobile health apps (MHA) have the potential to improve health care. The commercial MHA... more BACKGROUND Mobile health apps (MHA) have the potential to improve health care. The commercial MHA market is rapidly growing, but the content and quality of available MHA are unknown. Consequently, instruments of high psychometric quality for the assessment of the quality and content of MHA are highly needed. The Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) is one of the most widely used tools to evaluate the quality of MHA in various health domains. Only few validation studies investigating its psychometric quality exist with selected samples of MHAs. No study has evaluated the construct validity of the MARS and concurrent validity to other instruments. OBJECTIVE This study evaluates the construct validity, concurrent validity, reliability, and objectivity, of the MARS. METHODS MARS scoring data was pooled from 15 international app quality reviews to evaluate the psychometric properties of the MARS. The MARS measures app quality across four dimensions: engagement, functionality, aesthetic...

Research paper thumbnail of Mobile Apps for the Management of Gastrointestinal Diseases: Systematic Search and Evaluation Within App Stores

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Background Gastrointestinal diseases are associated with substantial cost in health care. In time... more Background Gastrointestinal diseases are associated with substantial cost in health care. In times of the COVID-19 pandemic and further digitalization of gastrointestinal tract health care, mobile health apps could complement routine health care. Many gastrointestinal health care apps are already available in the app stores, but the quality, data protection, and reliability often remain unclear. Objective This systematic review aimed to evaluate the quality characteristics as well as the privacy and security measures of mobile health apps for the management of gastrointestinal diseases. Methods A web crawler systematically searched for mobile health apps with a focus on gastrointestinal diseases. The identified mobile health apps were evaluated using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS). Furthermore, app characteristics, data protection, and security measures were collected. Classic user star rating was correlated with overall mobile health app quality. Results The overall qua...

Research paper thumbnail of Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores

Internet Interventions, 2021

Background and objective: Pain spans a broad spectrum of diseases and types that are highly preva... more Background and objective: Pain spans a broad spectrum of diseases and types that are highly prevalent and cause substantial disease burden for individuals and society. Up to 40% of people affected by pain receive no or inadequate treatment. Providing a scalable, time-, and location-independent way for pain diagnostic, management, prevention and treatment mobile health applications (MHA) might be a promising approach to improve health care for pain. However, the commercial app market is rapidly growing and unregulated, resulting in an opaque market. Studies investigating the content, privacy and security features, quality and scientific evidence of the available apps are highly needed, to guide patients and clinicians to high quality MHA. Contributing to this challenge, the present study investigates the content, quality, and privacy features of pain apps available in the European app stores. Methods: An automated search engine was used to identify pain apps in the European Google Play and Apple App store. Pain apps were screened and checked for systematic criteria (pain-relatedness, functionality, availability, independent usability, English or German). Content, quality and privacy features were assessed by two independent reviewers using the German Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS-G). The MARS-G assesses quality on four objectives (engagement, functionality, aesthetics, information quality) and two subjective scales (perceived impact, subjective quality). Results: Out of 1034 identified pain apps 218 were included. Pain apps covered eight different pain types. Content included basic information, advice, assessment and tracking, and stand-alone interventions. The overall quality of the pain apps was average M = 3.13 (SD = 0.56, min = 1, max = 4.69). The effectiveness of less than 1% of the included pain apps was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial. Major problems with data privacy were present: 59% provided no imprint, 70% had no visible privacy policy. Conclusion: A multitude of pain apps is available. Most MHA lack scientific evaluation and have serious privacy issues, posing a potential threat to users. Further research on evidence and improvements privacy and security are needed. Overall, the potential of pain apps is not exploited.

Research paper thumbnail of Mobile Apps for Older Adults: Systematic Search and Evaluation Within Online Stores

JMIR Aging, 2021

BackgroundThrough the increasingly aging population, the health care system is confronted with va... more BackgroundThrough the increasingly aging population, the health care system is confronted with various challenges such as expanding health care costs. To manage these challenges, mobile apps may represent a cost-effective and low-threshold approach to support older adults.ObjectiveThis systematic review aimed to evaluate the quality, characteristics, as well as privacy and security measures of mobile apps for older adults in the European commercial app stores.MethodsIn the European Google Play and App Store, a web crawler systematically searched for mobile apps for older adults. The identified mobile apps were evaluated by two independent reviewers using the German version of the Mobile Application Rating Scale. A correlation between the user star rating and overall rating was calculated. An exploratory regression analysis was conducted to determine whether the obligation to pay fees predicted overall quality.ResultsIn total, 83 of 1217 identified mobile apps were included in the an...

Research paper thumbnail of Validation of the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS)

PLOS ONE, 2020

Background Mobile health apps (MHA) have the potential to improve health care. The commercial MHA... more Background Mobile health apps (MHA) have the potential to improve health care. The commercial MHA market is rapidly growing, but the content and quality of available MHA are unknown. Instruments for the assessment of the quality and content of MHA are highly needed. The Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) is one of the most widely used tools to evaluate the quality of MHA. Only few validation studies investigated its metric quality. No study has evaluated the construct validity and concurrent validity. Objective This study evaluates the construct validity, concurrent validity, reliability, and objectivity, of the MARS. Methods Data was pooled from 15 international app quality reviews to evaluate the metric properties of the MARS. The MARS measures app quality across four dimensions: engagement,

Research paper thumbnail of Psychometric evaluation of the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Mobile health apps (MHA) have the potential to improve health care. The commercial MHA... more BACKGROUND Mobile health apps (MHA) have the potential to improve health care. The commercial MHA market is rapidly growing, but the content and quality of available MHA are unknown. Consequently, instruments of high psychometric quality for the assessment of the quality and content of MHA are highly needed. The Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) is one of the most widely used tools to evaluate the quality of MHA in various health domains. Only few validation studies investigating its psychometric quality exist with selected samples of MHAs. No study has evaluated the construct validity of the MARS and concurrent validity to other instruments. OBJECTIVE This study evaluates the construct validity, concurrent validity, reliability, and objectivity, of the MARS. METHODS MARS scoring data was pooled from 15 international app quality reviews to evaluate the psychometric properties of the MARS. The MARS measures app quality across four dimensions: engagement, functionality, aesthetic...

Research paper thumbnail of Mobile Apps for the Management of Gastrointestinal Diseases: Systematic Search and Evaluation Within App Stores

Journal of Medical Internet Research

Background Gastrointestinal diseases are associated with substantial cost in health care. In time... more Background Gastrointestinal diseases are associated with substantial cost in health care. In times of the COVID-19 pandemic and further digitalization of gastrointestinal tract health care, mobile health apps could complement routine health care. Many gastrointestinal health care apps are already available in the app stores, but the quality, data protection, and reliability often remain unclear. Objective This systematic review aimed to evaluate the quality characteristics as well as the privacy and security measures of mobile health apps for the management of gastrointestinal diseases. Methods A web crawler systematically searched for mobile health apps with a focus on gastrointestinal diseases. The identified mobile health apps were evaluated using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS). Furthermore, app characteristics, data protection, and security measures were collected. Classic user star rating was correlated with overall mobile health app quality. Results The overall qua...

Research paper thumbnail of Systematic evaluation of content and quality of English and German pain apps in European app stores

Internet Interventions, 2021

Background and objective: Pain spans a broad spectrum of diseases and types that are highly preva... more Background and objective: Pain spans a broad spectrum of diseases and types that are highly prevalent and cause substantial disease burden for individuals and society. Up to 40% of people affected by pain receive no or inadequate treatment. Providing a scalable, time-, and location-independent way for pain diagnostic, management, prevention and treatment mobile health applications (MHA) might be a promising approach to improve health care for pain. However, the commercial app market is rapidly growing and unregulated, resulting in an opaque market. Studies investigating the content, privacy and security features, quality and scientific evidence of the available apps are highly needed, to guide patients and clinicians to high quality MHA. Contributing to this challenge, the present study investigates the content, quality, and privacy features of pain apps available in the European app stores. Methods: An automated search engine was used to identify pain apps in the European Google Play and Apple App store. Pain apps were screened and checked for systematic criteria (pain-relatedness, functionality, availability, independent usability, English or German). Content, quality and privacy features were assessed by two independent reviewers using the German Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS-G). The MARS-G assesses quality on four objectives (engagement, functionality, aesthetics, information quality) and two subjective scales (perceived impact, subjective quality). Results: Out of 1034 identified pain apps 218 were included. Pain apps covered eight different pain types. Content included basic information, advice, assessment and tracking, and stand-alone interventions. The overall quality of the pain apps was average M = 3.13 (SD = 0.56, min = 1, max = 4.69). The effectiveness of less than 1% of the included pain apps was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial. Major problems with data privacy were present: 59% provided no imprint, 70% had no visible privacy policy. Conclusion: A multitude of pain apps is available. Most MHA lack scientific evaluation and have serious privacy issues, posing a potential threat to users. Further research on evidence and improvements privacy and security are needed. Overall, the potential of pain apps is not exploited.

Research paper thumbnail of Mobile Apps for Older Adults: Systematic Search and Evaluation Within Online Stores

JMIR Aging, 2021

BackgroundThrough the increasingly aging population, the health care system is confronted with va... more BackgroundThrough the increasingly aging population, the health care system is confronted with various challenges such as expanding health care costs. To manage these challenges, mobile apps may represent a cost-effective and low-threshold approach to support older adults.ObjectiveThis systematic review aimed to evaluate the quality, characteristics, as well as privacy and security measures of mobile apps for older adults in the European commercial app stores.MethodsIn the European Google Play and App Store, a web crawler systematically searched for mobile apps for older adults. The identified mobile apps were evaluated by two independent reviewers using the German version of the Mobile Application Rating Scale. A correlation between the user star rating and overall rating was calculated. An exploratory regression analysis was conducted to determine whether the obligation to pay fees predicted overall quality.ResultsIn total, 83 of 1217 identified mobile apps were included in the an...

Research paper thumbnail of Validation of the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS)

PLOS ONE, 2020

Background Mobile health apps (MHA) have the potential to improve health care. The commercial MHA... more Background Mobile health apps (MHA) have the potential to improve health care. The commercial MHA market is rapidly growing, but the content and quality of available MHA are unknown. Instruments for the assessment of the quality and content of MHA are highly needed. The Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) is one of the most widely used tools to evaluate the quality of MHA. Only few validation studies investigated its metric quality. No study has evaluated the construct validity and concurrent validity. Objective This study evaluates the construct validity, concurrent validity, reliability, and objectivity, of the MARS. Methods Data was pooled from 15 international app quality reviews to evaluate the metric properties of the MARS. The MARS measures app quality across four dimensions: engagement,