A systematic review of smartphone applications for smoking cessation
Brianna L Haskins, Donna Lesperance, Patric Gibbons, Edwin D Boudreaux, Brianna L Haskins, Donna Lesperance, Patric Gibbons, Edwin D Boudreaux
Abstract
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the USA. However, limited data exists regarding smoking cessation mobile app quality and intervention effectiveness. Innovative and scalable interventions are needed to further alleviate the public health implications of tobacco addiction. The proliferation of the smartphone and the advent of mobile phone health interventions have made treatment more accessible than ever. The purpose of this review was to examine the relation between published scientific literature and available commercial smartphone health apps for smoking cessation to identify the percentage of scientifically supported apps that were commercially available to consumers and to determine how many of the top commercially available apps for smoking cessation were supported by the published scientific literature. Adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, apps were reviewed in four phases: (1) identified apps from the scientific literature, (2) searched app stores for apps identified in the literature, (3) identified top apps available in leading app stores, and (4) determined which top apps available in stores had scientific support. Seven articles identified six apps with some level of scientific support, three (50%) were available in at least one app store. Conversely, among the top 50 apps suggested by each of the leading app stores, only two (4%) had any scientific support. While half of the scientifically vetted apps remain available to consumers, they are difficult to find among the many apps that are identified through app store searches.
Keywords: Mobile health; Smartphone application; Tobacco cessation; eHealth.
Conflict of interest statement
Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Research involving human participants and/or animalsThis article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
Informed consentFor this type of study formal consent is not required.
Previous reporting of dataThe findings reported have not been previously reported or published and the manuscript is not being simultaneously submitted elsewhere.
IRB approvalThis paper is a review of published data and is exempt from IRB review.
Primary data accessThe authors have full control of all primary data and that they agree to allow the journal to review the data if requested.
FundingThis study was funded through internal department funds.
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Source: PubMed