Availability of Spanish-Language Medical Apps in Google Play and the App Store: Retrospective Descriptive Analysis Using Google Tools

Background: The number of medical and health apps in the App Store and Google Play repositories has been increasing in the recent years, and most of these apps are in English. However, little is known about the domain of Spanish health apps and their evolution.

Objective: The aim of this study was to perform a retrospective descriptive analysis of medical apps for patients in the Spanish language by using Google search tools over a 5-year period and to compare the results by using a reproducible methodology to obtain a better knowledge of the medical apps available in the Spanish Language.

Methods: Over a 5-year period, medical apps were catalogued using a Google-based methodology. Keywords of the first 14 categories of the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, were selected, and in December of each year, searches of the URLs of Google Play and the App Store were conducted using Google Advanced Search. The first 10 results were taken, and apps meeting the inclusion criteria were selected and rated with the iSYScore method.

Results: Out of a sample of 1358 apps, 136 met the inclusion criteria. The 3 main categories of the medical apps were in the fields of endocrinology (diabetes), respiratory (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and allergies), and neurology (multiple sclerosis, Parkinson disease, and Alzheimer disease). Few apps were maintained over the 5 years. Only 10 of the 136 apps were maintained for 3 years or more. There was a large number of original apps in other languages that were translated into Spanish (56/136, 41.2%). In the last year of the study, the main reason (73/280, 26.1%) for discarding an app was the date of the last update.

Conclusions: The market of Spanish apps is poor; only few apps have appeared repeatedly over 5 years. Differences were found with the international market in terms of apps related to mental health, heart and circulatory system, and cancer, and coincidences were found in the relevance of apps for diabetes control.