Table 4.
Effectiveness of apps with respect to behavior change outcomes (N=44).
| Target behavior and behavior change outcomea | No evidence, n | Some evidence, n | Significant evidence, n (%) | Total times outcome reported, n | |
| Dietary habits |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Healthy food choices (including vegetable consumption and purchase of salt) [22,23,40,44,45,48,51,59] | 2 | 1 | 5 (63) | 8 |
|
|
Hunger [40] | 1 | 0 | 0 (0) | 1 |
|
|
Control (including cognitive restraint, self-efficacy, self-regulation, PBCb, and avoiding uncontrolled eating) [40,41,45,46,49,60] | 5 | 0 | 1 (17) | 6 |
|
|
Dietary compliance (including goal setting and diet tracking) [42,45,46,52,58] | 4 | 0 | 1 (20) | 5 |
|
|
Energy/caloric intake [55,57] | 1 | 1 | 0 (0) | 2 |
|
|
Total (dietary habits) | 13 | 2 | 7 (32) | 22 |
| Physical activity | |||||
|
|
Physical activity (including moderate to vigorous physical activity) [25,30,33,37-39,52,55,58] | 7 | 1 | 1 (11) | 9 |
|
|
Walking/step count [24,25,29,33,35,57] | 2 | 2 | 3 (43) | 7 |
|
|
Reduce sedentary behavior [29,32,37] | 0 | 0 | 3 (100) | 3 |
|
|
Time to complete fitness test [31] | 1 | 0 | 0 (0) | 1 |
|
|
Attitudes to physical activity [34] | 0 | 1 | 0 (0) | 1 |
|
|
Control (including self-efficacy, PBC, and barriers) [25,34,39] | 2 | 1 | 0 (0) | 3 |
|
|
Self-monitoring [39] | 0 | 0 | 1 (100) | 1 |
|
|
Total (physical activity) | 12 | 5 | 8 (32) | 25 |
| Reduce alcohol | |||||
|
|
Change in weekly alcohol consumption [27] | 1 | 0 | 0 (0) | 1 |
|
|
Change in full Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test score [27] | 1 | 0 | 0 (0) | 1 |
|
|
Number of alcohol consequences [72] | 1 | 0 | 0 (0) | 1 |
|
|
Maximum number of drinks at once [72] | 1 | 0 | 0 (0) | 1 |
|
|
Total (reduce alcohol) | 4 | 0 | 0 (0) | 4 |
| Smoking cessation | |||||
|
|
Continuous abstinence (including 7- and 30-day point prevalence abstinence) [28,64,67-71] | 5 | 1 | 1 (14) | 7 |
|
|
Quit rates [65,66] | 2 | 0 | 0 (0) | 2 |
|
|
Acceptance of cravings [65] | 0 | 1 | 0 (0) | 1 |
|
|
Readiness to quit (including motivation and quit attempts) [66,69,71] | 3 | 0 | 0 (0) | 3 |
|
|
Total (smoking cessation) | 10 | 2 | 1 (8) | 13 |
| Total | 39 | 9 | 16 (25) | 64 | |
aMany of the studies reported more than one behavior change outcome, and all distinct outcomes were recorded here, so there are more individual outcomes than the number of studies.
bPBC: perceived behavioral control.