The use of mobile applications to improve health outcomes in Latin America: a bibliometric analysis
Palabras clave:
bibliometric, mobile applications, health, Latin America.Resumen
Objective: To describe the existing scientific evidence on mobile health applications in Latin America.
Methods: Bibliometric study which analyzed scientific articles about mobile applications for health outcomes, published in peer-reviewed journals which were indexed in Scopus and LILACS until December 2019. All articles included had a minimum of one author with a Latin American affiliation. We analyzed the data with Stata and VOSviewer.
Results: There were 271 articles in this analysis. The scientific production per year increased from 1 article in 2012 to 18 articles in 2019. Most mobile health applications were designed for the general population or for patient use. Almost half of the studies explained the design process of mobile health applications, 19.6 % were quasi-experimental studies, and 4.4% were randomized clinical trials. Primary care and public health were the most common medical specialty among mobile health applications (n = 42; 15.5%), while elderly care was the most frequent health issue (n = 13; 4.8%).
Conclusion: There has been a progressive increase in scientific publications on mobile health applications in Latin America since 2012. However, only a few of these mobile health applications have been tested as an intervention in clinical randomized trials and covers the health burdens of the region.
Descargas
Citas
Minelli R, Lanza M, editores. Software analytics for mobile applications–insights & lessons learned. 2013 17th European conference on software maintenance and reengineering (CSMR). Genova: IEEE; 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/CSMR.2013.24
Morse SS, Murugiah MK, Soh YC, Wong TW, Ming LC. Mobile Health Applications for Pediatric Care: Review and Comparison. Ther Innov Regul Sci. 2018;52(3):383-91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2168479017725557
Aitken M, Clancy B, Nass D. The Growing Value of Digital Health: Evidence and Impact on Human Health and the Healthcare System. IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. 2017 [acceso 28/12/2019]. Disponible en: https://regresearchnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/the-growing-value-of-digital-health.pdf
GSMA. The Mobile Economy Latin America. 2019 Report. GSMA Intelligence. 2019 [acceso 28/12/2019]. Disponible en: https://www.gsmaintelligence.com/research/?file=1573c453fb84b5b412e139bac53253ae&download
Zicker F, Cuervo LG, Salicrup LA. Promoting high quality research into priority health needs in Latin America and Caribbean. BMJ. 2018;362:k2492. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k2492
World Bank. Research and development expenditure. [acceso 28/12/2019]. Disponible en: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?locations=XJ
Nouri R, Sharareh RNK, Ghazisaeedi M, Marchand G, Yasini M. Criteria for assessing the quality of Health apps: a systematic review. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2018;25(8):1089-98. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocy050
Van Raan AFJ. The use of bibliometric analysis in research performance assessment and monitoring of interdisciplinary scientific developments. Technik folgenabschautzung Theorie. Praxis. 2003;1:20-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14512/tatup.12.1.20
Nadri H, Rahimi B, Timpka T, Sedghi S. The Top 100 Articles in the Medical Informatics: a Bibliometric Analysis. J Med Syst. 2017;41(10):150. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-017-0794-4
Peng C, He M, Cutrona SL, Kiefe CI, Liu F, Wang Z. Theme Trends and Knowledge Structure on Mobile Health Apps: Bibliometric Analysis. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2020;8(7):e18212. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2196/18212
Sweileh WM, Al-Jabi SW, AbuTaha AS, Zyoud SH, Anayah FMA, Sawalha AF. Bibliometric analysis of worldwide scientific literature in mobile - health: 2006-2016. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2017;17(1):72. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-017-0476-7
Slade M, Oades L, Jarden A. Wellbeing, Recovery and Mental Health. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316339275
Zhang C, Zhang X, Halstead-Nussloch R. Assessment metrics, challenges and strategies for mobile health apps. Issues Inform Syst. 2014;15(2):59.
Scopus. [acceso 20/07/2020]. Disponible en: https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus?dgcid=RN_AGCM_Sourced_300005030
LILACS. Literatura Latinoamericana y del Caribe en Ciencias de la Salud. [acceso 30/10/2019]. Disponible en: https://lilacs.bvsalud.org/es/
Scimago Journal and Country Rank. Scopus. 2018 [acceso 30/12/2019]. Disponible en: https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?regionLatin%20America
van Eck NJ, Waltman L. Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics. 2010;84(2):523-38. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3
“App” voted 2010 word of the year by the American Dialect Society (UPDATED). American Dialect Society. 2011 [acceso 30/12/2019]. Disponible en: https://www.americandialect.org/app-voted-2010-word-of-the-year-by-the-american-dialect-society-updated
Rhea CK, Felsberg DT, Maher JP. Toward Evidence-Based Smartphone Apps to Enhance Human Health: Adoption of Behavior Change Techniques. American Journal of Health Education. 2018;49(4):210-3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2018.1473177
Michán L. Análisis bibliométrico de la producción sistemática en América Latina. Acta Biol Colomb. 2011;16(2):33-46.
de Moya-Anegón F, Chinchilla-Rodríguez Z, Vargas-Quesada B, Corera-Álvarez E, Muñoz-Fernández FJ, González-Molina A, et al. Coverage analysis of Scopus: A journal metric approach. Scientometrics. 2007;73:53-78. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1681-4
Howick J, Chalmers I, Glasziou P, Greenhalgh T, Heneghan C, Liberati A, et al. The 2011 Oxford CEBM levels of evidence (Introductory Document). Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. 2011. Disponible en: http://www.cebm.net/index.aspx?o=5653
Ventres WB. The Emergence of Primary Care in Latin America: Reflections from the Field. J Am Board Fam Med. 2013;26:183-6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2013.02.120138 .
Global Burden of Disease. The United States: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. 2017 [acceso 30/12/2019]. Disponible en: https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/
Alarcon-Ruiz CA, Diaz-Barrera ME, Vera-Monge VA, Alva-Diaz C, Metcalf TA Bibliometric Analysis of the Latin American Research on Stroke 2003-2017. World Neurosurg. 2019;129:e545-e54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2019.05.212 .
Delgado-Osorio N, Vera-Polania F, Lopez-Isaza AF, Martinez - Pulgarin DF, Murillo-Abadia J, Munoz-Urbano M, et al. Bibliometric assessment of the contributions of literature on Chagas disease in Latin America and the Caribbean. Recent Pat Antiinfect Drug Discov. 2014;9(3):202-8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2174/1574891x10666150410154322
Culquichicon C, Cardona-Ospina JA, Patino-Barbosa AM, Rodriguez-Morales AJ. Bibliometric analysis of Oropouche research: impact on the surveillance of emerging arboviruses in Latin America. 2017;6:194. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.10936.2
Wagner S, Fernández-Ardévol M. Local content production and the political economy of the mobile app industries in Argentina and Bolivia. New Media & Society. 2016;18(8):1768-86. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815571112
Zhang L, Glänzel W. Proceeding papers in journals versus the “regular” journal publications. Journal of Informetrics. 2012;6:88-96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2011.06.007
Descargas
Publicado
Cómo citar
Número
Sección
Licencia
Aquellos autores que tengan publicaciones con esta revista, aceptan los términos siguientes:
- Los autores conservarán sus derechos de autor y garantizarán a la revista el derecho de primera publicación de su obra, el cuál estará simultáneamente sujeto a la Licencia Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC 4.0) que permite a terceros compartir la obra siempre que se indique su autor y su primera publicación esta revista.
- Los autores podrán adoptar otros acuerdos de licencia no exclusiva de distribución de la versión de la obra publicada (p. ej.: depositarla en un repositorio institucional o publicarla en un volumen monográfico) siempre que se indique la publicación inicial en esta revista.
- Se permite y recomienda a los autores difundir su obra a través de Internet (p. ej.: en repositorios institucionales o en su página web) antes y durante el proceso de envío, lo cual puede producir intercambios interesantes y aumentar las citas de la obra publicada. (Véase El efecto del acceso abierto). En ese caso, solicitamos que en la cabecera del manuscrito se indique:"Esta es una versión preprint enviada a la Revista Cubana de Información en Ciencias de la Salud http://rcics.sld.cu/"
ENGLISH VERSION
AUTHORS WITH PUBLICATIONS IN THIS JOURNAL ACCEPT THE FOLLOWING TERMS:
- Authors will retain their copyright and will grant the Journal the right of first publication of their work, which will also be subject to a Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) allowing third parties to share the work as long as the author's name and data about initial publication in this Journal are stated.
- Authors may adopt other license agreements for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published (e.g. deposit it in an institutional repository or publish it in a monographic volume), as long as initial publication in this Journal is indicated.
- It is permitted and recommended for authors to disseminate their work on the Internet (e.g. in institutional repositories or their web page) before and during the submission process, which may result in interesting exchanges and increase the number of citations of the published work) (see The effect of open access).
