Features, Functionalities, and the Future of Commercial Pain Applications

ABSTRACT

Objective: We aimed to assess the characteristics of the pain application (app) marketplace and determine improvements to mobile health (m Health) that could assist patients with pain disorders in obtaining more accessible care. Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, complementary and integrative therapies delivered via mHealth technologies have become more popular due to their accessibility. As more users are downloading apps to address health concerns, it is important to analyze the ever growing marketplace's features and limitations. Design/Methods: After searching the iOS and Google Play Stores for commercially available pain apps that met pre-specified search criteria, trained app raters entered 47 apps into the Mobile-Health Index and Navigation Database (MIND) published by the Division of Digital Psychiatry at BIDMC. Through a 105-question objective rating framework, each app was evaluated for its accessibility, privacy, cost, functionalities, features, and clinical foundations. The data was compared with a control group of non-pain apps-matched for platform and cost -to examine the traits of pain apps in contrast with the rest of the marketplace. Results: The top features were 44.7% (21/47) offered symptom tracking, 34.0% (16/47) offered medication tracking, and 42.6% (20/47) offered physical health exercises. Just 2.13% (1/47) of apps offered HIPAA privacy protections or had a crisis management feature. Additionally, only 10.64% (5/47) of pain apps were supported by efficacy studies. Conclusions: Commercially available pain apps are typically used to record pain episodes or document medications. However, the lack of privacy, crisis management, and efficacy studies may be preventing their clinical implementation.