An app for people with gout who want to learn more about the condition and understand how to control your symptoms.
Currently there are no gout apps that Health Navigator strongly recommends. A review evaluating gout apps identified the following shortfalls of gout apps currently available in app stores. Read more about gout apps.
| Gout Central |
By National Kidney Foundation |
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Features
- Reminders
- Symptom tracking
- Education and information
Get the app:
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| Clinical review |
Read a clinical review of this app.
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| User reviews |
 (0 reviews)
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| Security and privacy |
Does the app:
- collect medical information? Yes
- require a login? No
- have password protection? No
- have a privacy policy? Yes
- require internet access? No
Read more safety tips around health apps.
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| Cost |
Free |
What does the app do?
This app provides you with information about gout, such as the causes, gout flare triggers, treatment options, lifestyle tips for preventing gout flares and how to protect your kidneys. The app also has tools to track various measures such as serum uric acid and gout flares, and has logs to document your medications, supplements and questions for your healthcare provider.
However, the app is not able to use mmol/L as the uric acid units, and some of the trackers and features are incomplete. For a more detailed description of the app, see iTunes and, for a detailed review, see Reviews.
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Pros
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Cons
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✔ Medicine tracker (but see cons).
✔ Weight, GFR, ACR, blood pressure, and flare trackers with graphing (but see cons).
✔ Medicine reminders (but see cons).
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✘ At the time of review, the app hadn’t been updated for 2.5 years.
✘ The uric acid units are in mg/dl. In New Zealand we use mmol/L.
✘ Many of the tools are incomplete, eg:
o When entering variables such as weight, blood pressure, GFR and ACR, you can only enter the results for the current day.
o In the medicine tracker, you can’t save medicines but have to manually enter them each time.
o The medicine alert section only allows for 2 medicines.
o The gout tracker doesn’t allow you to save custom fields for symptoms, triggers and treatments. t also uses a non-standard 0–-5 pain rating score rather than the standard 0–10.
✘ The doctor appointment calendar doesn’t integrate with your phone’s calendar.
✘ The external resources are all North American.
✘ The information section needs editing and reviewing. It has too much information on some topics such as kidney disease, uric acid metabolism and uncommonly used drugs. Meanwhile there is too little information about some important topics like how allopurinol is titrated and footwear. There are also no images or videos.
✘ No calendar for allopurinol titration.
✘ No gout flare action plan.
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Review details
- June 2020: Version 1.3, Android (has been renamed Gout Central)
- August 2016: Version 1.01, Android (was called Managing Gout)
| App developer |
| If you are the developer and would like to provide updated information about this app, please email the app library manager at applibrary@healthnavigator.org.nz. |
Learn more
This app has been reviewed by other independent websites:
Managing gout iMedicalApps
References
The following references relate to articles about apps for self-management of gout:
- Serlachius A, Schache K, et al. Association between user engagement of a mobile health app for gout and improvements in self-care behaviors: randomized controlled trial JMIR Mhealth, Uhealth. 2019; 7(8): e15021.
- Nguyen AD, Baysari MT, Kannangara DRW, et al. Mobile applications to enhance self-management of gout International Journal of Medical Informatics. October; 94: 67-74.
Disclaimer: Health Navigator’s app library is a free consumer service to help you decide whether a health app would be suitable for you. Our review process is independent. We have no relationship with the app developers or companies and no responsibility for the service they provide. This means that if you have an issue with one of the apps we have reviewed, you will need to contact the app developer or company directly.
Did you find this information useful?
In-depth reviews of the Gout Central app.
Clinical review
Reviewer: Jeremy Steinberg, GP, FRNZCGP
Date of review: June 2020
Comments: Users should give this app a miss mainly due to the inability to use mmol/L as the uric acid units, and the incomplete trackers and other features. An ideal gout app would have an allopurinol titration calendar, and customisable gout flare action plan, which this lacks.
Safety concerns: There is no information about stopping allopurinol if the user develops a rash.
New Zealand relevance: The app uses mg/dL instead of mmol/L for uric acid units.
Clinical review
Reviewer: Rebecca Grainger, Rheumatologist, University of Otago and Hutt Valley DHB
Date of review: August 2016
Comments: This app is most useful for people wanting to know more about gout, identify factors that affect their gout and monitor their treatment. Using this app may help someone learn more about the disease, track their symptoms, management and serum uric acid.
Safety concerns: None
New Zealand relevance: American units of measurement may be confusing to the New Zealand user, eg, serum uric acid tracker in mg/dL (units used in the US) – in New Zealand serum uric acid is measured in mmol/L. Since the app is Americanised, some medications mentioned in the treatment options are not available in New Zealand, such as pegloticase.
