ORCID Profile
0000-0003-0393-1436
Current Organisation
Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences
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Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 05-12-2022
DOI: 10.2196/42225
Abstract: Approximately 110 million Farsi speakers worldwide have access to a growing mobile app market. Despite restrictions and international sanctions, Iran’s internal mobile health app market is growing, especially for Android-based apps. However, there is a need for guidelines for developing health apps that meet international quality standards. There are also no tools in Farsi that assess health app quality. Developers and researchers who operate in Farsi could benefit from such quality assessment tools to improve their outputs. This study aims to translate and culturally adapt the Mobile Application Rating Scale in Farsi (MARS-Fa). This study also evaluates the validity and reliability of the newly developed MARS-Fa tool. We used a well-established method to translate and back translate the MARS-Fa tool with a group of Iranian and international experts in Health Information Technology and Psychology. The final translated version of the tool was tested on a s le of 92 apps addressing smartphone addiction. Two trained reviewers completed an independent assessment of each app in Farsi and English. We reported reliability and construct validity estimates for the objective scales (engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and information quality). Reliability was based on the evaluation of intraclass correlation coefficients, Cronbach α and Spearman-Brown split-half reliability indicators (for internal consistency), as well as Pearson correlations for test-retest reliability. Construct validity included convergent and discriminant validity (through item-total correlations within the objective scales) and concurrent validity using Pearson correlations between the objective and subjective scores. After completing the translation and cultural adaptation, the MARS-Fa tool was used to assess the selected apps for smartphone addiction. The MARS-Fa total scale showed good interrater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.83, 95% CI 0.74-0.89) and good internal consistency (Cronbach α=.84) Spearman-Brown split-half reliability for both raters was 0.79 to 0.93. The instrument showed excellent test-retest reliability (r=0.94). The correlations among the MARS-Fa subdomains and the total score were all significant and above r=0.40, suggesting good convergent and discriminant validity. The MARS-Fa was positively and significantly correlated with subjective quality (r=0.90, P .001), and so were the objective subdomains of engagement (r=0.85, P .001), information quality (r=0.80, P .001), aesthetics (r=0.79, P .001), and functionality (r=0.57, P .001), indicating concurrent validity. The MARS-Fa is a reliable and valid instrument to assess mobile health apps. This instrument could be adopted by Farsi-speaking researchers and developers who want to evaluate the quality of mobile apps. While we tested the tool with a s le of apps addressing smartphone addiction, the MARS-Fa could assess other domains or issues since the Mobile App Rating Scale has been used to rate apps in different contexts and languages.
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 27-08-2022
Abstract: here are 110 million Farsi speakers worldwide who have access to a growing mobile app market. Despite restrictions and international sanctions, the internal mHealth app market in Iran is growing, especially for Android-based apps. However, there are no guidelines for developing health apps that meet international quality standards. There are also no tools in Farsi that assess health app quality. Developers and researchers who operate in Farsi could benefit from such quality assessment tools to improve their outputs. his study aimed to translate and culturally adapt the Mobile App Rating Scale in Farsi (MARS-Fa). This study also evaluated the validity and reliability of the newly developed MARS-Fa tool. e used a well-established method to translate and back-translate the MARS-Fa tool with a group of Iranian and international experts in Health Information Technology and Psychology. We validated the MARS-Fa with a s le of 92 apps addressing smartphone addiction using two trained reviewers. We reported inter-rater reliability, internal consistency, and convergent and discriminant validity of the validation exercise. ronbach’s alpha coefficient was .84 for the total MARS-Fa and subjective quality, indicating excellent internal consistency. Spearman-Brown split-half reliability indicators were very good and excellent (.79 to .93). The MARS-Fa showed excellent inter-rater reliability (ICC=.91) and test-retest reliability (r=.94). The inter-item correlation coefficients among 18 items were greater than 0.20, suggesting good construct and discriminant validity. he MARS-Fa tool can be reliably used to evaluate health apps by trained reviewers who speak Farsi. Further research should be done to validate the tool with health apps targeting other health problems.
Location: No location found
Location: Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Location: Iran (Islamic Republic of)
No related grants have been discovered for Saeed Barzegari.