Evaluation of Hausa mobile health apps quality

ABSTRACT

Mobile Health (mHealth) involves the utilization of mobile communication to promote health by supporting healthcare practices. To the best of our knowledge, the quality of mobile health apps available to the 65 million Hausa speakers globally is yet to be evaluated in a study. Objective: To evaluate the quality of Hausa mobile health apps available on Google play store. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study of the quality of Hausa mobile health apps available on Google play store. A search of the Google play store for Hausa mobile health apps was conducted on 19th September, 2021. Hausa words "KiwonLafiya", "CutadaMagani" and "RashinLafiya" were utilized in the search for relevant apps. The Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) was used to evaluate the quality of the Hausa mobile health apps found. Two of the authors separately applied the MARS which was validated by the third author. Four MARS domains (Engagement, Functionality, Aesthetics, Information) were assessed to evaluate app quality, the mean score in each domain and the overall mean were determined from the two separate quality ratings conducted. Result: Eight Hausa mobile apps were found. Majority of the apps were on women health; n = 3 (37.5%) and health education; n = 3 (37.5%). Three of the apps (37.5%) had > 10,000 downloads. Seven out of the eight apps (87.5%) were developed by an individual developer. The functionality domain had the highest mean score, followed by aesthetics and engagement domains, while the least mean score was in the information domain. The overall mean from rater one's rating was 3.18 ± 0.31 and 2.84 ± 0.60 from rater two's rating, which showed an acceptable quality. Conclusion: The reviewed apps were of an acceptable quality, however, health education features within mobile health apps needs more improvement