Research Assessment #10

Date: November 27, 2020

Subject: Smartphone apps for cancer: A content analysis of the digital health marketplace

Citation: Charbonneau, Deborah H, et al. "Smartphone Apps for Cancer: A Content Analysis of the Digital Health Marketplace." Digital Health, SAGE Publications, 11 Feb. 2020, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7016299/.

Assessment:

About one hundred and twenty-three apps appeared in the analysis to identify smartphone applications for cancer intended for the general public. I researched this to gain a scope on Apps already created for patients and gain more insight into how I should go about building my original work project.

One of the interesting facts I found out was that half of the apps focused on general cancer information. Out of all of the apps, only three percent had an evaluation by a health provider. I should include once I finish my original work, which is the designing phase of this process for example, a study done by Bender et al. reported that very few apps provided references to clinical trials to support apps efficiently.

The app's ability to allow for day-to-day accessibility and allow people to access information at the top of their finger is not only the goal but also a necessity because it provides convenience for the consumers.

The majority (ninety-three percent) of the apps were free to download.

Although inadequate and insignificant apps have played the marketplace, some researchers suggested that categorizing these apps under the legislation as a medical product could be a way to regulate the app's quality. We could ensure that the market's apps are reliable and approved by medical professionals with the correct credentials. For example, access to knowledge can affect how a patient understands, appraises, and applies heath information. A few limits to this study are that only "cancer" and "oncology" were searched to find the study's apps.

Additionally, very few apps had a glossary of terms for their users, which could help the patient understand cancer and its significance in various aspects of treatments, prevention, or awareness. Furthermore, many apps did not identify the organization in affiliation, which affects the credentials and qualifications of authors or organizations providing content are needed to help health consumers assess the reliability and authority of information. To fix these problems as technology and app use becomes more spread in the healthcare industry is to provide more regulations and information on who can create the apps, their credibility, and the sources they gathered their information from. This needs to be regulated in order to ensure the public is well informed and not misleading on important details.

I can apply this to my original works, where I intend to design an app. I hope through the process of creating an app; I can reach an intended/less knowledgeable audience to educate them and allow them to change their way of life. Before I would launch my idea into a real app, I learned that I would want to make sure it was peer-reviewed by multiple doctors/researchers to ensure credibility and to ensure the audience gets accurate and real-time information by providing that it is accurate and easily understandable by my audience is one of the main goals of my project. I want it to be easily accessible to get precise information and ensure that the people who could eventually use the app I design are in the best care possible.