Self-Determined Health App Evaluation Questionnaire Development: Mixed Methods Study

Background: The rapid increase in health apps and their volatility in (Austrian) app stores for Android and Apple are evidence of a flourishing business sector in the wellness industry. Objective: In this report, a checklist for informed decision-making by users was developed and evaluated using health apps in the categories "Nutrition", "Exercise", "Mental Health" and "Symptom Checker". Methods: Evaluation criteria was derived from multiple reference documents and weighted in a survey, as well as a focus group meeting. Further the selected evaluation criteria were tested against selected apps, which were most popular in the above-mentioned categories in fall 2023. Results: The short checklist is to be made publicly available to citizens and covers the categories of regulatory compliance, safety, and quality assurance regarding the quality of the app provider and the functionality and evidence-based content regarding the content quality of the app and the user-friendliness of the app. It comprises of the six question items, which appeared to be problematical in the evaluation most often. For ease of use, a concise checklist with the most critical questions and helpful tips from the evaluation was expanded by the question of importance and with meaningful advice on how to find the right information in an app. Conclusions: The evaluation based on the comprehensive checklist using selected apps confirmed the importance of such a checklist, since most of them lacked in terms of safety and security.