A Preliminary Survey of the
Penetration and Application of Mobile
Health Apps in Malaysia
In this presentation
• Smartphones and health apps – What are they?
• Recent developments and research
• How the survey was conducted and questions that we
asked.
• Results of the survey and trends that were found.
• Our interpretation of the results and the future
implications.
Smartphones
Smartphones are mobile
phones with greater
computing ability than a
regular mobile phone. They
can be used for many things,
including:
• Connecting to the
internet, web browsing
and Wi-Fi
• Playing media such as
music, video and games
• Digital camera
• GPS navigation
• Motion sensing
• Making payments
• A d a y o e…
Telephones with computing ability
were first put on the market in 1993.
From there, many advancements
have been made.
Modern day smartphone alongside a
1993 IBM Simon
Smartphones
In 2012, over 1 billion
smartphones were in use
worldwide (Reisinger,
2012).
In Malaysia, mobile phone
penetration is 140%, and
smartphone penetration
has been reported to be
35% in early 2014 and is
expected to rise. This
means that there are over
10 million smartphone
users in Malaysia.
Worldwide, Malaysia ranks
33rd place for smartphone
penetration.
© Statista
Smartphone Applications
Health related apps
In this survey, health related apps
covered the following areas:
• Baby care
• Beauty tips
• Calorie counter
MedCalc
• Drug information
• Healthy diet
• General body check
• Medical calculator
• Running
• Symptom checker
Calorie counter
• Wo e ’s health
• Workouts
• Others (free answer option)
iTriage
Medscape
Epocrates
Noom Walk
Health related apps
Medscape: Medical
news, drug information
and treatments for
illnesses
Epocrates: Check drug
interaction and other
drug safety issues.
iTriage: Check
symptoms, research
diseases, learn about
diseases and find
nearby healthcare
Daily yoga: Yoga routine and
different levels of classes.
Web MD: Symptom checker,
access to drug and treatment
information, first aid
information and local health
listings.
Period diary: Track menstrual
cycle and predict period and
ovulation dates.
Recent developments
• Painometer: An app that can be
used to determine the amount of
pain a patient is in (Vega et al. 2014).
• An app was developed that can
detect bacteria, even in food
samples (Gopinath et al. 2014; Zhu
et al. 2012).
• Some attempts have been made to
use smartphone technology in
hospitals to help i p o e patie ts’
quality of stay by removing the need
for wired monitoring devices (Kim &
Lee, 2014)
• Influenza surveillance and
forecasting (Lee et al. 2014)
The painometer: an
example of some of the
images that would be
used to help assess pain.
Current research
• A study done in the UK found that a large number of medical students and
junior doctors use smartphone apps to aid them in their clinical work as
well as for self-education (Payne et al., 2012).
• A study done by Pee et al., in 2014, found that people over 40 were much
less likely to have a smartphone.
• Students in Malaysia are becoming more dependent on smartphones for
communication and social networking (Suki & Suki, 2013).
• Smartphones are being used more in the workplace to aid with work and
to interact with patients (Bibault et al., 2014)
• Recent developments and current research would indicate that there is a
great number of people who use smartphones, not only for
communication, but also in a clinical environment to aid in work.
Aims
• To find out the penetration of smartphones and
health-related apps in Malaysia.
• To i estigate people’s ie s o health-related
apps, including reliability and any data security
issues.
• To find any links between profession and health
app use, opinions on health apps and usage
habits.
How the survey was conducted
• Questionnaires were distributed to members of the general public
in Malaysia. The locations of distribution included a pharmacy, a
hospital and a university in peninsular Malaysia. Questions were
derived from previous literature as well as from other informants.
• The questionnaire collected data on a number of areas including
the number of people owning a smartphone, the number of health
related apps on their phone, what aspect of health the apps related
to, how often and where the apps were used and any negative
aspects perceived about health related apps.
• All the data were entered into Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel
for analysis.
The results and trends
• In this survey, 54% of the participants were students, 16% were in
the healthcare profession and 13% in education with the remainder
of participants being in other professions.
• 65% of participants were female, 35% were male.
• 96% of participants owned a smartphone.
• Out of the people who owned a smartphone, 92% had installed
health related apps on their phone.
• 29 participants were over 40 years of age and all owned a
smartphone.
Number of times option chosen in % for each gender population
Gender and types of health app
owned
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
Male
15
Female
10
5
0
Type of health app
Relationship between profession and
type of health apps owned
Number of times option chosen in % for each population
25
20
15
10
Students
Healthcare professionals
Others
5
0
Type of health app
When health apps are used
Response
Students
Health care professionals
In lectures
21
Workshops/practicals
15
Revision
47
Other
6
Ward environment
7
Clinical environment
Other
Free time
Public transport
Other
Number of times response chosen
When sick
Before travel
During a workout
Other
19
6
100
9
27
7
20
0
Health apps are reliable
Percent of answers within each group
Profession
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree
Healthcare
7.7%
61.5%
30.8%
0.0%
0.0%
Education
6.3%
68.8%
18.8%
6.3%
0.0%
Student
2.4%
49.4%
47.1%
1.2%
0.0%
Others
3.6%
50.0%
39.3%
7.1%
0.0%
Ge e ally, ost people ag eed ith the state e t Health apps a e
elia le , ho e e , the elia ility of apps as the ost f e ue tly hose
negative aspect of health apps.
Those who did not find health related apps reliable did not tend to list
Medscape and other similar apps as apps that they had on their
smartphones, instead, they tended to list apps that aid in exercise, diet,
calorie counting and BMI. In this study, how reliable an app is perceived to
be can be related to medical knowledge and the type of health apps being
used.
Data security
• 68% were concerned about smartphone
security.
• 77% were worried about the confidentiality of
data used by health apps.
• 67% would be put off from downloading an
app because of security and confidentiality
concerns.
What these results mean
• In the population that was surveyed, there was a very high level of
smartphone and smartphone health app penetration.
• There were significant differences in type of apps owned and the
perception of reliability across different groups. This may be due to
the types of health apps that different groups of people used.
• Security and data confidentiality were a concern for a large number
of participants in this survey.
• Smartphones and heath apps are being used by people in the
workplace and to aid in education. Smartphones could be used to a
greater extent to help improve healthcare.
The future of smartphone health apps
• Further integration into workplaces and clinical
environments.
• There are organizations that will help to fund the
production of mobile phone apps, such as appbackr. This
may help to promote the development of more apps.
• Further information gathering from surveys such as this
one and using the data collected to produce consumer
tailored health apps.
• Since some apps, such as iTriage, allow users to input
health data, further steps should be taken to ensure the
security and confidentiality of data on smartphones. Health
information is generally considered private and most
people would not want personal health information to be
stolen.
References
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Don Reisinger (17 October 2012). "Worldwide smartphone user base hits 1 billion". CNet. CBS Interactive, Inc.
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