Abstract
Background. Health sciences are steadily developing apps to help people to have correct lifestyle and to help physicians to follow patients with chronic diseases. However, a proper validated tool to evaluate patients’ perception of apps’ still lacks in many languages. Currently, there is an English validated questionnaire called User Version of the Mobile Application Rating Scale (uMARS). Aim of the study is to translate and validate uMARS in Italian.
Methods. uMARS questionnaire have been translated into Italian by an official translator from English. Then, questionnaire has been administrated to 100 smartphone users to evaluate the same App at time 1 and at time 2 (after 2 weeks). Paired t test, Pearson Correlation Coefficient, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICCs) and Cronbach’s Alpha were used to evaluate Italian uMARS reliability and validity.
Results. Subjects were 100, 52 males (52%) and 48 females (48%). Mean age was 22.8 (SD: 3.4). All the enrolled subjects answered to all questions both at time 0 and at time 1. Paired t test showed no statistically significant difference for each answer or answers group between time 0 and 1 (P>0.05). Cronbach’s alpha was 0.945, as all patients answered to all questions. Each question was furtherly assessed through Pearson correlation coefficient, which demonstrated high reliability, with significant P (<0.05) and Pearson Coefficients higher than 0.7. Similarly, ICC, which was always higher than 0.750.
Conclusions. Our results allow the validation of uMARS in Italian language and it may become a reliable and useful tool to evaluate health app.
References
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