Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Sep 22, 2021
Date Accepted: Feb 17, 2022
Date Submitted to PubMed: Apr 18, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Development and validation of the Japanese version of the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS)
ABSTRACT
Background:
The number of mobile health apps (MHAs) is increasing year by year, but there is no standard scale to evaluate them objectively and multidimensionally. Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS) is now widely utilized for this purpose. However, there is no Japanese version of MARS.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is (1) to develop the Japanese version of MARS and (2) to assess the reliability and validity of the Japanese version in evaluating MHAs.
Methods:
For the development of the Japanese version of MARS, cross-cultural adaptation using a universalist approach was adopted. A total of 50 apps on mental health were evaluated by two independent raters. Internal consistency and inter-rater reliability were calculated. Convergent and divergent validity using multitrait scaling analysis, and concurrent validity were assessed.
Results:
After cross-cultural adaptation, all 23 items of original MARS were included in the Japanese version. Following translation, back-translation, and review by the author of the original MARS, the Japanese version of MARS was finalized. The internal consistency was acceptable in all subscales of objective and subjective quality with Crohnbach’s alpha of .78 - .89. Inter-rater reliability was deemed acceptable with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) ranging .61 - .79 in all subscales, except for “Functionality” with ICC .40. For the validity, convergent/divergent validity and concurrent validity were also considered acceptable.The rate of missingness of response was high in several items in the “Information” subscale.
Conclusions:
The Japanese version of MARS was developed and showed reliability and validity comparable with those of the original MARS. This Japanese MARS can be utilized as a standard evaluation for the quality and credibility of MHAs.
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