Abstract
Mobile health (mHealth) applications for the self‐management of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) are said to have great potential to assist individuals living with T1DM manage their illness more effectively. However, the lack of expert involvement in the development of these mHealth applications pose a serious risk to the consumers. mHealth applications that provide medical advice that is incorrect can harm users that rely on the mHealth application to treat their illness. For this reason, the study reviewed healthcare practitioner and scientific association involvement in the development of mHealth applications for diabetes self‐management. A systematic search comprising of specific search terms, was carried out on Google’s Play Store for mHealth applications intended for managing T1DM. These applications were then reviewed in order to determine the target market, category, developer, date that the application was last updated, price as well as whether a healthcare practitioner or diabetes association took part in the development of the mHealth application. A total of 584 mHealth applications were found on Google Play Store but only 321 mHealth applications met the criteria. In terms of the target market, 77.22% of the applications were targeted towards consumers and only 19.8% were targeted towards healthcare professionals. In terms of category, 48.51% of applications were classified under health and fitness and 45.54% under medical, leading consumers to believe that these applications are credible. In terms of expert involvement in the development of the applications, 31.68% of the applications had scientific society involvement whereas only 28.71% of the applications had healthcare professional involvement. Even though an increasing amount of consumers are turning to mHealth applications to assist them with managing their health, expert involvement in the development of mHealth applications for diabetes self‐management is insufficient. Until this issue is officially addressed, application developers should acquire expert involvement when developing these applications. If consumers can tell which applications are credible, the risks associated with using the applications to help manage their illness will be less.