Mobile Phone Apps for Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Prevention and Response: Systematic Search on App Stores

Abstract

Background Since the 2008 advent of the smartphone, more than 180 billion copies of apps have been downloaded from Apple App Store, with more than 2.6 million apps available for Android and 2.2 million apps available for iOS. Many violence prevention and response apps have been developed as part of this app proliferation. Objective This study aims to evaluate the prevalence and quality of freely available mobile phone apps targeting intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence (SV) prevention and response. Methods We conducted a systematic search of violence prevention and response mobile phone apps freely available in Apple App Store (iOS; March 2016) and Google Play Store (Android; July 2016). Search terms included violence prevention, sexual assault, domestic violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, forensic nursing, wife abuse, and rape. Apps were included for review if they were freely available, were available in English, and had a primary purpose of prevention of or response to SV or IPV regardless of app target end users. Results Using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS), we evaluated a total of 132 unique apps. The majority of included apps had a primary purpose of sharing information or resources. Included apps were of low-to-moderate quality, with the overall subjective quality mean for the reviewed apps being 2.65 (95% CI 2.58-2.72). Quality scores for each of the 5 MARS categories ranged from 2.80 (engagement) to 4.75 (functionality). An incidental but important finding of our review was the difficulty in searching for apps and the plethora of nonrelated apps that appear when searching for keywords such as “rape” and “domestic violence” that may be harmful to people seeking help. Conclusions Although there are a variety of mobile apps available designed to provide information or other services related to SV and IPV, they range greatly in quality. They are also challenging to find, given the current infrastructure of app store searches, keyword prioritization, and highlighting based on user rating. It is important for providers to be aware of these resources and be knowledgeable about how to review and recommend mobile phone apps to patients, when appropriate.

Enhancing Campus Safety

“…Given the incredible co-occurrence of sexual violence in the setting of alcohol use on college campuses, the purpose of the study was to investigate students' feedback regarding the content for a text-message-delivered harm reduction intervention to jointly address alcohol use and alcohol's role in sexual violence risk. Although a great deal of theory-based work has been completed to determine how to use text messages to share brief, goal-directed messages to college students and other young adults about reducing alcohol use (Kristan & Suffoletto, 2015; Lewis et al, 2018; Suffoletto & Chung, 2016; Suffoletto et al, 2015), far less attention has been spent on addressing the co-occurring behaviors of alcohol use and sexual violence using ongoing or in-the-moment technologies (Draughon Moret et al, 2022; Glass et al, 2022). Students highlighted benefits and challenges of using a text-message-based approach.…”

Addressing discrimination and violence against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) persons from Brazil: a mobile health intervention

“…Other studies have implemented mHealth interventions to improve SGM’s mental health and quality of life [ 11 – 13 ]. However, most mHealth strategies available for persons experiencing discrimination and violence were developed, having as key users cis, heterosexual persons [ 14 ]. To the best of our knowledge, the Rainbow Resistance—Dandarah is the first mHealth intervention developed so far for SGM facing discrimination and violence in Latin America.…”

The use of mobile phone applications to enhance personal safety from interpersonal violence – an overview of available smartphone applications in the United Kingdom

“…However, we searched the two most common application stores using systematic and replicable terms. In line with other studies assessing the use of apps for violence prevention [59], only freely available apps and app features which were understood to be freely available at the time of data collection were reviewed, thus apps or features/functions within apps which required a financial cost are not reviewed here. This may be a source of bias, as it is possible that paid apps may have had more testing and could potentially be more reliable or have been subject to evaluation.…”