Health Care Apps Reported in Newspapers: Content Analysis (Preprint)

Abstract

Background: Newspapers are considered as one of the most viewed and influential media sources in both UK and USA. Information about how newspapers portray healthcare apps to the readers has been lacking. Objectives:The present study investigated the reporting on healthcare apps in newspapers published in the UK and USA. Methods:The Nexus® UK database was utilised to identify and select relevant articles. Systematic content analysis of the articles that met the inclusion criteria (articles of any format that contained reference to healthcare apps or medical apps) within the highest circulated newspapers in the UK and USA over a period of 10 years (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) was conducted. Inter-rater reliability of coding was established using a 10% sample of the chosen articles.Results: 151 UK and 69 USA relevant newspaper articles were retrieved. Healthcare apps were most frequently reported on in the Daily Mail and The Guardian (UK newspapers) and in the New York Times and the Washington Post (US newspapers). An exponential rise in published scientific articles (PubMed®) on healthcare related apps was noted during the study period. A total of 26.4 and 19.1% of the retrieved newspaper articles appeared in the features and main news sections respectively. General information about healthcare applications was the main theme coved by the newspapers (45.9%). Most of the articles represented a societal point of view (72.3%). The main focus of the articles was on general health matters (48%) and specific disease matters (37%). Diabetes was the most frequently mentioned disease in the articles. A high proportion (91.8%) of the articles mentioned benefits of using healthcare apps mainly for personalised care, while 24.0% of the articles commented on related risks such as anxiety and confidentiality issues. Almost half (45.9%) of the articles mentioned potential facilitators to the use of apps while less than 10% discussed barriers. Most of the articles (83.6%) were judged as having balanced judgement on the present topic while more than half (60.0%) of the articles were judged to be of generally low quality. Conclusions:Healthcare apps were not widely reported in newspaper articles in the UK and the USA over the study period, however, there appeared to be much more recent interest. Characteristically the articles focused on societal impact and on general health rather than on disease specific applications.Keywords: apps, Newspaper articles, Newspapers, health 2 IntroductionHealthcare applications (apps) are defined by the FDA as "software programs that run on smartphones and other mobile communication devices in order to, for example, provide health information to the public, provide other health related support to patients and healthcare professionals and remotely transfer data to health care providers". These apps can also be used to facilitate decision making and provide the opportunity for consultations to take place remotely [1].Smartphone apps are becoming increasingly popular glo...