Japanese Version of the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS): Development and Validation

Abstract

Background The number of mobile health (mHealth) apps continues to rise each year. Widespread use of the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) has allowed objective and multidimensional evaluation of the quality of these apps. However, no Japanese version of MARS has been made available to date. Objective The purposes of this study were (1) to develop a Japanese version of MARS and (2) to assess the translated version’s reliability and validity in evaluating mHealth apps. Methods To develop the Japanese version of MARS, cross-cultural adaptation was used using a universalist approach. A total of 50 mental health apps were evaluated by 2 independent raters. Internal consistency and interrater reliability were then calculated. Convergent and divergent validity were assessed using multitrait scaling analysis and concurrent validity. Results After cross-cultural adaptation, all 23 items from the original MARS were included in the Japanese version. Following translation, back-translation, and review by the author of the original MARS, a Japanese version of MARS was finalized. Internal consistency was acceptable by all subscales of objective and subjective quality (Cronbach α=.78-.89). Interrater reliability was deemed acceptable, with the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) ranging from 0.61 to 0.79 for all subscales, except for “functionality,” which had an ICC of 0.40. Convergent/divergent validity and concurrent validity were also considered acceptable. The rate of missing responses was high in several items in the “information” subscale. Conclusions A Japanese version of MARS was developed and shown to be reliable and valid to a degree that was comparable to the original MARS. This Japanese version of MARS can be used as a standard to evaluate the quality and credibility of mHealth apps.

The Persian Version of the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS-Fa): Translation and Validation Study

“…The MARS-Fa showed a good degree of interrater reliability, with ICCs ranging from 0.60 to 0.85, with results that are aligned with the original study (ICCs=0.79) [29] and other similar validation studies, such as the Italian (0.96) [34], Spanish (0.96) [36], German (0.83) [35], Arabic (0.84) [37], French (0.89) [40], Japanese (0.70) [38], and Turkish (0.94) [41] studies. Functionality was the domain with the lowest ICC value, as in the original MARS study (0.50) [29] and the Japanese study (0.40) [38]. This might be due to the nature of mHealth apps for mental health used in both studies, similar to the ones targeting smartphone addiction in this paper.…”

“…Overall, the MARS-Fa shows good construct validity, as all items seemed to correlate well within each objective subdomain. Similar to the Japanese validation study [38], one item of the functionality domain appeared to have the lowest correlation with the other items, "ease of use," which might indicate a wide variability in the usability of the apps analyzed. As for concurrent validity, the MARS-Fa total score (objective quality) was significantly correlated with subjective quality.…”

“…To determine construct and concurrent validity, we replicated the approach of Yamamoto et al [ 38 ], who validated the Japanese MARS. Construct validity was based on evaluating item-subscale correlations [ 38 ] for the objective scales only, considering the intrinsic subjectivity of the “subjective quality” scale.…”

“…The MARS has been used to evaluate apps in user-based heuristic evaluations [ 30 ] and expert-driven content analyses of apps [ 31 - 33 ]. The MARS has been validated across multiple studies [ 32 ] and translated into Italian [ 34 ], and more recently into German [ 35 ], Spanish [ 36 ], Arabic [ 37 ], Japanese [ 38 ], Korean [ 39 ], French [ 40 ], and Turkish [ 41 ]. However, this instrument has no translation or cultural adaptation for the Farsi language.…”

Evaluating and rating HIV/AIDS mobile apps using the feature-based application rating method and mobile app rating scale

“…The MARS tool is a comprehensive and reliable tool that is widely used to rate the quality of mobile health apps like Epilepsy, COVID-19, self-management mobile health apps, Spine disorders, and Alzheimer's disease [ 24 – 28 ]. This tool has been widely translated and validated into other languages, including French [ 29 ], Italian [ 30 ], Korean [ 16 ], Spanish [ 31 ], Japanese [ 32 ], Arabic [ 33 ], and German [ 34 ].…”