The Reviews Are in: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Consumer Perspectives on Apps for Bipolar Disorder
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: The delivery of mobile health (mHealth) services is acceptable to mental health consumers. However, despite the benefits of accessibility, cost-effectiveness, anonymity, and ability to tailor content to individual needs, consumer engagement remains a hurdle for uptake and continued use. This may be unsurprising as few studies have examined app content from the consumer perspective or assessed consumer preferences for the content of apps for mental health management. An opportunity to examine consumer perspectives exists in using naturally generated data that is publically available in the Google Play and Apple app stores. Whereas commercial developers routinely use this data, to date there has been no in-depth evaluation within scientific research. OBJECTIVE: The aim of our study was to explore what consumers consider useful content for mental health management apps, identify unmet needs, and understand user expectations of mental health apps within the context of apps for bipolar disorder. METHODS: Publically available English language consumer reviews of 48 apps for bipolar disorder were used as data, providing a total of 2173 reviews. Review text was coded and analyzed using a team approach to qualitative content analysis. Results were presented in 2 forms: (1) a quantitative summary of the 9 major and minor themes and (2) a qualitative synthesis of key thematic findings. RESULTS: The majority of reviews were for symptom monitoring apps (87.94%, 1911/2173). The qualitative content analysis revealed 5 main themes: (1) laudatory talk, comments regarding the app's benefits including helpfulness and successful design features (74.00% of reviews, 1608/2173); (2) unfavorable feedback, negative reviews largely concerning unmet needs, privacy and technical issues, and potential dangers of app use (25.54%, 555/2173); (3) conceptions of community, referring to both communities of users with mental ill-health accessed via the app and a community created among app users and developers (24.25%, 527/2173); (4) wishlist features, app features requested by users (17.53%, 381/2173); and (5) apps and therapy, app use within clinical care (10.58%, 230/2173). Four minor themes were also identified: (1) app cost, (2) privacy and data security, (3) comparisons with traditional monitoring, and (4) evidence-based mHealth. CONCLUSIONS: Although mostly positive, the proportion of reviews containing wishlist requests indicates consumer needs are not adequately addressed by currently available disorder management apps. Consumers value content that is helpful, supportive, and easy to use, and they are integrating apps into their health management and clinical care without necessarily considering the evidence-base or clinical effectiveness of the tool. User expectations regarding developer responsiveness to their needs has implications for community-based participatory research and integrated knowledge translation. However, this expectation is incompatible with current mHealth funding structures.
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A qualitative analysis of public reviews of apps developed for BD highlighted a number of unmet needs and complaints regarding functionality, suggesting that consumer preferences are currently not adequately addressed.
“indeed, a qualitative analysis of public reviews of apps developed for BD highlighted a number of unmet needs and complaints regarding functionality (Nicholas et al. 2017a), suggesting that consumer preferences are currently not adequately addressed.”
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 Nicholas et al. 2017a
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- Authors
- Nicholas, J., Fogarty, A. S., Boydell, K., & Christensen, H.
- Affiliations
- Black Dog Institute (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Nicholas, Jennifer
- Venue
- Journal of Medical Internet Research
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2017-04-07
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e105
- ISSN
- 1438-8871 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5400886
- OpenAlex
- W2604372657
- Cited by
- 158
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 14.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Medical Internet Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UNSWorks (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Bipolar Disorder and Treatment
- Keywords
- bipolar disorder, mental health apps, mobile health, consumer reviews, user expectations, unmet needs, privacy and data security, online communities, app features, app cost, mental health service users, app reviews, Google Play Store, App Store, user engagement, mental health stigma, digital mental health interventions
- MeSH terms
- Smartphone, Bipolar Disorder, Consumer Behavior, Data Collection, Humans, Mental Health, Telemedicine, Qualitative Research, Mobile Applications
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