A Review on Diabetes Self-management Applications for Android Smartphones: Perspective of Developing Countries

Proper and sufficient health-care services have always been of great importance to the society and its' people. There are some common health issues that are frequently faced by people which can be taken care of by introducing innovative healthcare and monitoring systems. Diabetes is one of these issues as recent studies state that a total number of 387 million people all over the world are suffering from it. This number is even more alarming in the developing countries as there are approximately 7 million people suffering from diabetes on an average in each developing country. In this prospect, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can provide a monitoring system with the help of interactive smart applications such as smart phone applications (apps) which provides the users with real time monitoring, suggestions and also, provides statistical report to indicate progress of healthcare. There are a significant number of smartphone applications in various operating systems (OSs) such as Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows etc. that provide previously stated features. However, due to the widespread use in the developing countries and abundance of free applications of Android OS, this study only reviews Android based apps. By analyzing the features and usefulness of these apps, 54 apps have been identified with satisfactory level of functionality. In our study, we compare these apps to analyze the provided features and the feasibility of these apps for becoming a robust interactive system for continuous monitoring and support for people with diabetes. This study could lead to the development of a complete monitoring system and would take the health-care system to a whole new level for the developing countries.