The Mobile App Development and Assessment Guide (MAG): Delphi-Based Validity Study

Abstract

Background In recent years, there has been an exponential growth of mobile health (mHealth)–related apps. This has occurred in a somewhat unsupervised manner. Therefore, having a set of criteria that could be used by all stakeholders to guide the development process and the assessment of the quality of the apps is of most importance. Objective The aim of this paper is to study the validity of the Mobile App Development and Assessment Guide (MAG), a guide recently created to help stakeholders develop and assess mobile health apps. Methods To conduct a validation process of the MAG, we used the Delphi method to reach a consensus among participating stakeholders. We identified 158 potential participants: 45 patients as potential end users, 41 health care professionals, and 72 developers. We sent participants an online survey and asked them to rate how important they considered each item in the guide to be on a scale from 0 to 10. Two rounds were enough to reach consensus. Results In the first round, almost one-third (n=42) of those invited participated, and half of those (n=24) also participated in the second round. Most items in the guide were found to be important to a quality mHealth-related app; a total of 48 criteria were established as important. “Privacy,” “security,” and “usability” were the categories that included most of the important criteria. Conclusions The data supports the validity of the MAG. In addition, the findings identified the criteria that stakeholders consider to be most important. The MAG will help advance the field by providing developers, health care professionals, and end users with a valid guide so that they can develop and identify mHealth-related apps that are of quality.