Patients’ and Nephrologists’ Evaluation of Patient-Facing Smartphone Apps for CKD
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Visual Abstract Export Background and objectives Many aspects of CKD management rely heavily on patient self-care, including medication and dietary adherence, self-monitoring of BP, and daily physical activity. Growing evidence suggests that incorporating smartphone-based applications can support self-care in CKD and chronic disease more generally. Design, setting, participants, & measurements We identified applications targeting patients with CKD by conducting a search of the US Apple App Store (iOS) and Google Play Store (Android) using the following four phrases: “kidney disease,” “renal,” “dialysis,” and “kidney transplant.” We considered the first 50 applications for each search term on each application store. We adapted a previously described framework for assessment of mobile health applications to account for kidney disease–specific content areas and evaluated applications on their types of patient engagement, quality, usability, and safety. Engagement and quality were assessed by both a patient and a nephrologist, usability was assessed by a patient, and safety was assessed by a nephrologist. Overall, two patients with CKD and three nephrologists performed the evaluations. We examined pairwise correlations between patient, nephrologist, and consumer ratings of application quality. Results Our search strategy identified 174 unique applications on Android and 165 unique applications on iOS. After excluding applications that were not related to kidney disease, were not patient facing, or were last updated before 2014, 12 Android-only applications, 11 iOS-only applications, and five dual-platform applications remained. Patient and nephrologist application quality ratings, assessed by the net promoter score, were not correlated (r=0.36; P=0.06). Consumer ratings on the application stores did not correlate with patient ratings of application quality (r=0.34; P=0.18). Conclusions Only a small subset of CKD applications was highly rated by both patients and nephrologists. Patients’ impressions of application quality are not directly linked to consumer application ratings or nephrologist impressions.
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Many apps popular with patients are not seen as high quality by clinicians.
“Furthermore, many apps popular with patients are not seen as high quality by clinicians.”
From What is the clinical value of mHealth for patients? (2020) · cites this paper as [39]
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What is the clinical value of mHealth for patients?
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- Authors
- Singh, K., Diamantidis, C. J., Ramani, S., Bhavsar, N. A., Mara, P., Warner, J., Rodriguez, J., Wang, T., & Wright-Nunes, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- Duke University (US)
- Lawrence General Hospital (US)
- Corresponding author
- Singh, Karandeep
- Venue
- Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology
- Published
- 2019-03-21
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 523-529
- ISSN
- 1555-9041 (ISSN-L)
- 1555-905X
- PMC
- PMC6450346
- OpenAlex
- W2923515690
- Cited by
- 79
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 5
- FWCI
- 15.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K01HL140146)
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (K23DK097183, R01DK093938, R01DK115844, K23DK099385, K12DK111011)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Health, Technology, Consumer Behavior
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Nephrology › Dialysis and Renal Disease Management
- Keywords
- chronic kidney disease, mobile application, mobile health, patient self-care, patient engagement, usability
- MeSH terms
- Smartphone, Attitude of Health Personnel, Humans, Nephrology, Patient Participation, Self Care, Renal Insufficiency, Chronic, Mobile Applications
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