Mobile Applications for Type 2 Diabetes Risk Estimation: a Systematic Review

J Med Syst. 2015 Oct;39(10):124. doi: 10.1007/s10916-015-0319-y. Epub 2015 Aug 25.

Abstract

Screening for chronical diseases like type 2 diabetes can be done using different methods and various risk tests. This study present a review of type 2 diabetes risk estimation mobile applications focusing on their functionality and availability of information on the underlying risk calculators. Only 9 out of 31 reviewed mobile applications, featured in three major mobile application stores, disclosed the name of risk calculator used for assessing the risk of type 2 diabetes. Even more concerning, none of the reviewed applications mentioned that they are collecting the data from users to improve the performance of their risk estimation calculators or offer users the descriptive statistics of the results from users that already used the application. For that purpose the questionnaires used for calculation of risk should be upgraded by including the information on the most recent blood sugar level measurements from users. Although mobile applications represent a great future potential for health applications, developers still do not put enough emphasis on informing the user of the underlying methods used to estimate the risk for a specific clinical condition.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review
  • Systematic Review

MeSH terms

  • Age Factors
  • Blood Glucose
  • Body Weights and Measures
  • Chronic Disease
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / epidemiology*
  • Health Behavior
  • Humans
  • Life Style
  • Mobile Applications*
  • Risk Assessment / methods*
  • Self Care
  • Socioeconomic Factors

Substances

  • Blood Glucose