Résumé
Background: The market of mobile health (mHealth) technology is rapidly evolving,making new mobile technologies potentially available for healthcare systems. Patientempowerment through self‐monitoring of symptoms, shared decision making withthe physician, and easily accessible education are important features extending thereach of mHealth technology beyond traditional care.Methods: Two digital distribution platforms (Apple App Store and Google PlayStore) were searched for currently available mobile applications (apps) for patientswith chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs). A new index (score ranging from 0 to 10)was developed to assess the potential of apps as a tool to empower patientsthrough mobile technology (based on self‐monitoring, personalized feedback, andpatient education app features).Results: One hundred and twelve apps were retained for analysis and could beclassified in 5 categories: Asthma (n = 71), COPD (n = 15), Asthma and COPD(n = 15), Rhinitis and Asthma (n = 5), and Rhinosinusitis (n = 6). Eighty percentwere developed by medical technology companies compared to 18% by medicaldoctors and 2% by pharmaceutical companies. Two‐thirds of apps allow diseaseself‐monitoring, whereas over half of apps provide patient feedback throughgraphs. Sixty percent of apps contain easily accessible patient education material.Only three percent of apps reach a score of ≥7 on the newly designed patientempowerment index.Conclusions: A variety of apps are available for patients with CRDs of which onlyfew were developed by or jointly with medical doctors. The majority of these appsinclude self‐monitoring tools, but only few also provide personalized feedback,which is needed to adopt these apps into daily care.