CORE
🇺🇦
make metadata, not war
Services
Services overview
Explore all CORE services
Access to raw data
API
Dataset
FastSync
Content discovery
Recommender
Discovery
OAI identifiers
OAI Resolver
Managing content
Dashboard
Bespoke contracts
Consultancy services
Support us
Support us
Membership
Sponsorship
Community governance
Advisory Board
Board of supporters
Research network
About
About us
Our mission
Team
Blog
FAQs
Contact us
Apps to improve diet, physical activity and sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents: A review of quality, features and behaviour change techniques
Authors
A Direito (9879164)
Amanda Rebar (9806360)
+8 more
Corneel Vandelanotte (9841796)
J-P Gnam (9879158)
Melanie Hayman (9802865)
NA Bray (9879155)
P Bachert (9879161)
Stephanie Alley (9781514)
Stephanie Schoeppe (9833171)
W Van Lippevelde (9852281)
Publication date
24 June 2017
Publisher
Abstract
Background: The number of commercial apps to improve health behaviours in children is growing rapidly. While this provides opportunities for promoting health, the content and quality of apps targeting children and adolescents is largely unexplored. This review systematically evaluated the content and quality of apps to improve diet, physical activity and sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents, and examined relationships of app quality ratings with number of app features and behaviour change techniques (BCTs) used. Methods: Systematic literature searches were conducted in iTunes and Google Play stores between May-November 2016. Apps were included if they targeted children or adolescents, focused on improving diet, physical activity and/or sedentary behaviour, had a user rating of at least 4+ based on at least 20 ratings, and were available in English. App inclusion, downloading and user-testing for quality assessment and content analysis were conducted independently by two reviewers. Spearman correlations were used to examine relationships between app quality, and number of technical app features and BCTs included. Results: Twenty-five apps were included targeting diet (n=12), physical activity (n=18) and sedentary behaviour (n=7). On a 5-point Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS), overall app quality was moderate (total MARS score: 3.6). Functionality was the highest scoring domain (mean: 4.1, SD: 0.6), followed by aesthetics (mean: 3.8, SD: 0.8), and lower scoring for engagement (mean: 3.6, SD: 0.7) and information quality (mean: 2.8, SD: 0.8). On average, 6 BCTs were identified per app (range: 1-14); the most frequently used BCTs were providing 'instructions' (n=19), 'general encouragement' (n=18), 'contingent rewards' (n=17), and 'feedback on performance' (n=13). App quality ratings correlated positively with numbers of technical app features (rho=0.42, p < 0.05) and BCTs included (rho=0.54, p < 0.01). Conclusions: Popular commercial apps to improve diet, physical activity and sedentary behaviour in children and adolescents had moderate quality overall, scored higher in terms of functionality. Most apps incorporated some BCTs and higher quality apps included more app features and BCTs. Future app development should identify factors that promote users' app engagement, be tailored to specific population groups, and be informed by health behaviour theories. © 2017 The Author(s)
Similar works
Full text
Available Versions
aCQUIRe
See this paper in CORE
Go to the repository landing page
Download from data provider
oai:figshare.com:article/13434...
Last time updated on 20/10/2022