Introduction: Today, design and development of smartphone applications is growing, rapidly. Health care applications have developed as a means of teaching, health promotion, patients’ self-care and controlling the nutrition of diabetic patients.
Objectives: Identify the functionality of smart applications in the mobile platform for controlling, teaching and healthy lifestyles in the field of nutrition for diabetic patients.
Method: Current review was conducted on the mobile platform to consider the functionalities of available applications to support the diabetic patients with the intelligent tools. The results of inclusion criteria (such as nutrition, weight control, blood pressure, education and interactive analysis tools) were evaluated and organized in the form of a scoping review. All applications in the systematic search were independent of both operating systems. The search samples were found in May 2018 by experts of medical informatics.
Findings: 273 potential applications were identified according to the results of the inclusion criteria with evidence based strategies and systematic evaluations to find the apps for diabetic patients. Approximately 29% of apps in both stores (79/273) met primary assessment criteria. Of these, 40 % of apps (32/79) excluded of more consideration due to lack in the most criteria of this study. The remaining apps are described as follows: 8% of total apps (22/273) and 4% of the apps (11/273) met general criteria and all criteria (including general and special) in the Google play store, respectively. Only 2 apps met general criteria with the Apple iOS while none of them covered with special criteria according to the objectives of this study.
Conclusion: There are various applications for control, education, and self-care in diabetes. Google is an acceptable platform for developers interested in examining interactive apps and techniques in disease control, education and healthy lifestyle programs.