Mobile Apps for Health Behavior Change in Physical Activity, Diet, Drug and Alcohol Use, and Mental Health: Systematic Review
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A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.
No Canadian affiliation. An affiliation-only frame — the usual design — would never have seen this work. It is one of the works that make the case for inverting the frame.
Machine scores (provisional)
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
- Teacher spread
- 0.305 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
- Validation status
score_only:v0-immature-baseline· verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it
Abstract
BACKGROUND: With a growing focus on patient interaction with health management, mobile apps are increasingly used to deliver behavioral health interventions. The large variation in these mobile health apps-their target patient group, health behavior, and behavioral change strategies-has resulted in a large but incohesive body of literature. OBJECTIVE: This systematic review aimed to assess the effectiveness of mobile apps in improving health behaviors and outcomes and to examine the inclusion and effectiveness of behavior change techniques (BCTs) in mobile health apps. METHODS: PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and Web of Science were systematically searched for articles published between 2014 and 2019 that evaluated mobile apps for health behavior change. Two authors independently screened and selected studies according to the eligibility criteria. Data were extracted and the risk of bias was assessed by one reviewer and validated by a second reviewer. RESULTS: A total of 52 randomized controlled trials met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis-37 studies focused on physical activity, diet, or a combination of both, 11 on drug and alcohol use, and 4 on mental health. Participant perceptions were generally positive-only one app was rated as less helpful and satisfactory than the control-and the studies that measured engagement and usability found relatively high study completion rates (mean 83%; n=18, N=39) and ease-of-use ratings (3 significantly better than control, 9/15 rated >70%). However, there was little evidence of changed behavior or health outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: There was no strong evidence in support of the effectiveness of mobile apps in improving health behaviors or outcomes because few studies found significant differences between the app and control groups. Further research is needed to identify the BCTs that are most effective at promoting behavior change. Improved reporting is necessary to accurately evaluate the mobile health app effectiveness and risk of bias.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
The record
- Venue
- JMIR mhealth and uhealth
- Topic
- Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Field
- Health Professions
- Canadian institutions
- —
- Funders
- EIT HealthCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
- Keywords
- CINAHLBehavior change methodsmHealthMental healthBehavior changePsychological interventionUsabilityInclusion (mineral)MedicineRandomized controlled trialMEDLINEPsychologyClinical psychologyPsychiatrySocial psychology
- Has abstract in OpenAlex
- yes