Smartphone and Mobile Health Apps for Tinnitus: Systematic Identification, Analysis, and Assessment

Abstract

Background Modern smartphones contain sophisticated high-end hardware features, offering high computational capabilities at extremely manageable costs and have undoubtedly become an integral part in users' daily life. Additionally, smartphones offer a well-established ecosystem that is easily discoverable and accessible via the marketplaces of differing mobile platforms, thus encouraging the development of many smartphone apps. Such apps are not exclusively used for entertainment purposes but are also commonplace in health care and medical use. A variety of those health and medical apps exist within the context of tinnitus, a phantom sound perception in the absence of any physical external source. Objective In this paper, we shed light on existing smartphone apps addressing tinnitus by providing an up-to-date overview. Methods Based on PRISMA guidelines, we systematically searched and identified existing smartphone apps on the most prominent app markets, namely Google Play Store and Apple App Store. In addition, we applied the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS) to evaluate and assess the apps in terms of their general quality and in-depth user experience. Results Our systematic search and screening of smartphone apps yielded a total of 34 apps (34 Android apps, 26 iOS apps). The mean MARS scores (out of 5) ranged between 2.65-4.60. The Tinnitus Peace smartphone app had the lowest score (mean 2.65, SD 0.20), and Sanvello—Stress and Anxiety Help had the highest MARS score (mean 4.60, SD 0.10). The interrater agreement was substantial (Fleiss κ=0.74), the internal consistency was excellent (Cronbach α=.95), and the interrater reliability was found to be both high and excellent—Guttman λ6=0.94 and intraclass correlation, ICC(2,k) 0.94 (95% CI 0.91-0.97), respectively. Conclusions This work demonstrated that there exists a plethora of smartphone apps for tinnitus. All of the apps received MARS scores higher than 2, suggesting that they all have some technical functional value. However, nearly all identified apps were lacking in terms of scientific evidence, suggesting the need for stringent clinical validation of smartphone apps in future. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to systematically identify and evaluate smartphone apps within the context of tinnitus.

Unification of treatments and interventions for tinnitus patients (UNITI): a study protocol for a multi-center randomized clinical trial

“…It has already been suggested, that mobile applications offer a promising way for tinnitus assessment and treatment [76][77][78]. Hence, several speci c mobile applications will be developed for the UNITI-RCT creating the opportunity to signi cantly reduce the number of tinnitus-related clinical visits and as such the necessary health care resources.…”

Investigation of the Effectiveness of Internet-Based Smart Phone Sound Therapy in Tinnitus Treatment

“…16 Akıllı telefonlarda internet tabanlı uygulamalar ile tinnitus tedavisi yapılmasına yönelik çalışmalar yapılmıştır. 8,17 En sık kullanılan akıllı telefon uygulama platformlarında (iOS, Android) tinnitus ile ilgili olarak geliştirilmiş 200'e yakın uygulama bulunduğu ve bu uygulamaların, tinnitus hastalarının normal yaşamlarına katkı sağlayacak düzeyde iyileştirici etkilerinin olduğu öne sürülmüştür. 10 Bu uygulamalar, temelde ses tedavileri, bilgilendirme-eğitim, meditasyon-farkındalık, hipnoz, gevşeme egzersizleri, değerlendirme amacıyla kullanılmakla birlikte büyük bir çoğunluğu akustik maskeleme amacıyla kullanılmaktadır.…”

Reasons for Discontinuing Active Participation on the Internet Forum Tinnitus Talk: Mixed Methods Citizen Science Study

“…Previous research on tinnitus self-help interventions showed that the rate of dropout ranged from 0 to 66% [7]. Some very recent studies explored the use of eHealth tools among tinnitus patients (eg, [8][9][10]). A first attempt toward understanding the characteristics of users who discontinued using Tinnitus Talk was recently made in a master's thesis published by Hegde [11].…”

“…Intuitively, more negative perceptions of Tinnitus Talk could be associated with a higher probability of discontinuing use of the forum. Moreover, we were interested in potential associations between age and perceptions of Tinnitus Talk and reasons for discontinuing use, since older participants might have more problems with using the internet than younger participants [8,9]. Accordingly, our research questions were as follows: (1) What are the reasons for discontinuing the use of Tinnitus Talk?…”