Systematic mapping of digital health apps – A methodological proposal based on the World Health Organization classification of interventions

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 was identified as a pandemic and Brazil is one of the major epicentres. One of the Brazilian states affected is Ceará, where this research group works. This group was challenged by a Hospital stakeholder to develop a communication channel with the health professionals and the coronavirus disease 2019 patient's family. This article presents a part of this whole project. The main methodological approach was the user-centred design based on user experience elements. Benchmarking was applied to understand the state-of-art of Brazilian apps that were related to coronavirus disease 2019. The research process was based on a systematic approach that was carried out by a multidisciplinary team that worked through four work cycles (identification, classification, screening, analysis). This work was based on two main points: (a) World Health Organization digital health guidelines, specifically digital health interventions (b) System Usability Scale. As a result, apps features were gathered according to the digital health interventions and their experiences were analysed on System Usability Scale. This work has provided an overview of apps that were available and how they support the coronavirus disease 2019 context. Another valuable contribution is the understanding of how the industry was satisfying the user's needs. These two results can provide a holistic view for future product development that can be used in different contexts of health issues. One of the highlighted conclusions was that digital health interventions should be adapted to the local context because these World Health Organization guidelines were open. Moreover, the System Usability Scale is an effective method to compare different digital health solutions.