Vasiloglou, Maria F.; Christodoulidis, Stergios; Reber, Emilie; Stathopoulou, Thomai; Lu, Ya; Stanga, Zeno; Mougiakakou, Stavroula (2021). Perspectives and Preferences of Adult Smartphone Users Regarding Nutrition and Diet Apps: Web-Based Survey Study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 9(7), e27885. JMIR Publications 10.2196/27885
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BACKGROUND:
Digital technologies have evolved dramatically in the recent years finding applications in a variety of aspects of everyday life. Smartphones and mobile apps are steadily used for more and more tasks including health monitoring. A large amount of "Nutrition and Diet" apps are available with some of them being very popular in terms of user downloads highlighting a trend towards diet monitoring and assessment.
OBJECTIVE:
We sought to explore the perspectives of end-users on the features, current use, and acceptance of "Nutrition and Diet" mHealth apps with a survey. We expect that such a study can provide user insights, assisting researchers and developers towards innovative dietary assessment.
METHODS:
A multidisciplinary team designed and compiled the survey. Before its release, it has been pilot-tested by 18 end-users. A 19-question survey was finally developed which has been translated into six languages: EN, DE, FR, ES, IT, EL. The participants were mainly recruited via social media and mailing lists of universities, university hospitals and patient associations.
RESULTS:
Respondents (n=2382) (79.4% female, 19.9% male, 0.7% neither) with a mean age of 27.2 (SD: 8.5) completed the survey. Around half of the participants (51.5%, 1227 out of 2382) have used a "Nutrition and Diet" app. The primary criteria for selecting such an app were to be easy to use (65.9%, 1570 out of 2382), free of charge (59.3%, 1413 out of 2382) and also produce automatic readings of caloric (51.7%, 1231 out of 2382) and macronutrient content (46.9%, 1117 out of 2382) (i.e., food type and/or the portion size are estimated by the system without any contribution by the user). An app is less likely to be selected if it incorrectly estimates portion size, calories or nutrient content (33.5%, 798 out of 2382). Moreover, other important limitations include the use of a database that comprises of non-local foods (27.5%, 655 out of 2382) and which may omit major foods (41%, 977 out of 2382).
CONCLUSIONS:
This comprehensive study in a mostly European population assessed the preferences and perspectives of (potential) "Nutrition and Diet" app users. Understanding user needs will benefit both researchers who work on tools for innovative dietary assessment, as well as those who assist research on behavioural changes related to nutrition.
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