Assessment of Real-World Use of Behavioral Health Mobile Applications by a Novel Stickiness Metric
Open accessAbstract
This cross-sectional study uses a novel “stickiness” measure to evaluate which mobile applications for smoking cessation, meditation, and other behavioral health areas are associated with long-term engagement.
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The most downloaded mental health apps are not necessarily the ones with the most active users.
“the most downloaded mental health apps are not necessarily the ones with the most active users (Carlo et al. 2020).”
From Evaluating the quality, safety, and functionality of commonly used smartphone apps for bipolar disorder mood and sleep self-management (2022) · cites this paper as Carlo et al. 2020
The Discussion reports that the most downloaded apps were not necessarily the stickiest: seven of the ten most downloaded scored below the sample’s mean stickiness. But the Methods define stickiness as monthly active users per normalized download, and the Results rank apps by that ratio, not by their absolute number of active users. The paper therefore supports a difference in engagement per download, but does not establish the claimed difference in active-user counts. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Cites
Hsu, C., & Lin, J. C. (2016) · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2016.04.012 · Cited by 455 · see citing works
The Use and Effectiveness of Mobile Apps for Depression: Results From a Fully Remote Clinical Trial
Arean, P. A., Hallgren, K. A., Jordan, J. T., Gazzaley, A., Atkins, D. C., Heagerty, P. J., & Anguera, J. A. (2016) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/jmir.6482 · Cited by 376 · see citing works
The Continued Use of Mobile Health Apps: Insights From a Longitudinal Study
Vaghefi, I., & Tulu, B. (2019) · JMIR mhealth and uhealth · doi:10.2196/12983 · Cited by 341 · see citing works
By the numbers: ratings and utilization of behavioral health mobile applications
Carlo, A. D., Hosseini Ghomi, R., Renn, B. N., & Areán, P. A. (2019) · npj Digital Medicine · doi:10.1038/s41746-019-0129-6 · Cited by 164 · see citing works
Self-citationTorous, J., Firth, J., Huckvale, K., Larsen, M. E., Cosco, T. D., Carney, R., Chan, S., Pratap, A., Yellowlees, P., Wykes, T., et al. (2018) · Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease · doi:10.1097/nmd.0000000000000864 · Cited by 101 · see citing works
The Potential of Object-Relations Theory for Improving Engagement With Health Apps
Cohen, J., & Torous, J. (2019) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.2019.17141 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
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Mehta, A., Niles, A. N., Vargas, J. H., Marafon, T., Couto, D. D., & Gross, J. J. (2021) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/26771 · Cited by 143 · see citing works
Li, S. H., Achilles, M. R., Spanos, S., Habak, S., Werner-Seidler, A., & O’Dea, B. (2022) · The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist · doi:10.1017/s1754470x22000095 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Sticky apps, not sticky hands: A systematic review and content synthesis of hand hygiene mobile apps
Gasteiger, N., Dowding, D., Ali, S. M., Scott, A. J. S., Wilson, P., & van der Veer, S. N. (2021) · Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association · doi:10.1093/jamia/ocab094 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Morton, E., Nicholas, J., Yang, L., Lapadat, L., Barnes, S. J., Provencher, M. D., Depp, C., Chan, M., Kulur, R., & Michalak, E. E. (2022) · International Journal of Bipolar Disorders · doi:10.1186/s40345-022-00256-6 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
“Indeed, it has been noted that the most downloaded mental health apps are not necessarily the ones with the most active users (Carlo et al. 2020).”
Background
- Authors
- Carlo, A. D., Hosseini Ghomi, R., Renn, B. N., Strong, M. A., & Areán, P. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Department of Neurology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Corresponding author
- Carlo, Andrew D.
- Venue
- JAMA Network Open
- Publisher
- American Medical Association (AMA)
- Published
- 2020-08-03
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- e2011978
- ISSN
- 2574-3805 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7399748
- OpenAlex
- W3046567951
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 5.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- JAMA Network Open (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Scholarship - UNLV (University of Nevada Reno) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R25MH104159, MH073553, T32MH073553, P50MH115837)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Smoking Behavior and Cessation
- Keywords
- mobile health apps, user engagement, smoking cessation apps, meditation apps, long-term engagement
- MeSH terms
- Behavior Therapy, Cross-Sectional Studies, Health Promotion, Humans, Patient Acceptance of Health Care, Telemedicine, Mobile Applications
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