Thank you for your interest and comments. We agree that the global inequalities in terms of access to health care and technology are important matters to be addressed. One of the limitations of our study was that the participants had a very high level of education, and this is often the situation regarding new technology [1]. With the growing use of internet and apps for health issues, more research is needed on the topic of eHealth literacy. To learn more, we are now monitoring the educational level of the users of Tät®, as well as other socioeconomic factors, now that Tät® is freely available in English and Swedish. According to eMarketer, Statista.com, the global use of smartphones is rapidly increasing. In 2014, 21.6% of the global population used a smartphone; this is expected to rise to 33.3% in 2018. Asia Pacific and China are those world regions with the largest number of new smartphones per year [2]. The number of health apps is growing rapidly, and very few of them are evidence based. In the development of user-friendly health apps, we agree that it is also important to engage users from different countries with different socioeconomic backgrounds.
References
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Statista – The portal for statistics, 2018. Available from: www.statista.com Accessed 12 February 2018.
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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. The application Tät® was developed by Eva Samuelsson, Göran Umefjord and Malin Sjöström in collaboration with ICT Service and System development at Umeå University (copyright 2010–2017 Tät.nu, at Umeå University). All rights reserved. The name Tät (mobile application) and the logo Tät.nu are registered as trademarks by The Swedish Patent and Registration office for E Samuelsson at Umeå University. The application is CE-marked as a medical device class I, according to Swedish regulation LVFS 2003:11. Available for free in Swedish and English at the Apple App Store and Google Play. None of the researchers have any financial interests in the product.
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Nyström, E., Asklund, I., Sjöström, M. et al. Re: Treatment of stress urinary incontinence with a mobile app: factors associated with success. Int Urogynecol J 29, 925 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-018-3632-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-018-3632-4