Review and Comparative Evaluation of Mobile Apps for Cardiovascular Risk Estimation: Usability Evaluation Using mHealth App Usability Questionnaire
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death and disability worldwide, and their prevention is a major public health priority. Detecting health issues early and assessing risk levels can significantly improve the chances of reducing mortality. Mobile apps can help estimate and manage CVD risks by providing users with personalized feedback, education, and motivation. Incorporating visual analysis into apps is an effective method for educating society. However, the usability evaluation and inclusion of visualization of these apps are often unclear and variable. Objective: The primary objective of this study is to review and compare the usability of existing apps designed to estimate CVD risk using the mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ). This is not a traditional usability study involving user interaction design, but rather an assessment of how effectively these applications meet usability standards as defined by the MAUQ. Methods: First, we used predefined criteria to review 16 out of 2238 apps to estimate CVD risk in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Based on the apps' characteristics (ie, developed for health care professionals or patient use) and their functions (single or multiple CVD risk calculators), we conducted a descriptive analysis. Then we also compared the usability of existing apps using the MAUQ and calculated the agreement among 3 expert raters. Results: Most apps used the Framingham Risk Score (8/16, 50%) and Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk (7/16, 44%) prognostic models to estimate CVD risk. The app with the highest overall MAUQ score was the MDCalc Medical Calculator (mean 6.76, SD 0.25), and the lowest overall MAUQ score was obtained for the CardioRisk Calculator (mean 3.96, SD 0.21). The app with the highest overall MAUQ score in the "ease-of-use" domain was the MDCalc Medical Calculator (mean 7, SD 0); in the domain "interface and satisfaction," it was the MDCalc Medical Calculator (mean 6.67, SD 0.33); and in the domain "usefulness," it was the ASCVD Risk Estimator Plus (mean 6.80, SD 0.32). Conclusions: We found that the Framingham Risk Score is the most widely used prognostic model in apps for estimating CVD risk. The "ease-of-use" domain received the highest ratings. While more than half of the apps were suitable for both health care professionals and patients, only a few offered sophisticated visualizations for assessing CVD risk. Less than a quarter of the apps included visualizations, and those that did were single calculators. Our analysis of apps showed that they are an appropriate tool for estimating CVD risk.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.037 | 0.112 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.009 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
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.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".