Introduction Children and adolescents constitute population connected to screens and digital technologies. They invest in the interactive process, periods of time that would be available for leisure, entertainment, study, school tasks, social and family relationships and other daily activities. In this context, this study aims to relate the mobile applications on sexuality and STD/HIV/AIDS prevention available on the main existing platforms.

Methods The list of applications was based on the Google Play (Android), App Store (iOS) and Marketplace (Windows Phone) search terms: Adolescent/teenager, sexuality, isolated and associated STD/HIV prevention, on both platforms, in the period between March and April 2016. Subsequently, the five most popular applications were identified from the identification of the available note and the number of evaluators. To analyse the data the main characteristics of the applications aimed at adolescents and discussed with the relevant literature were identified. The study obeyed the ethical aspects related to research involving human beings.

Results The research revealed that the most popular applications were games and erotic content, it is noted that no applications were found that contemplated adolescence and disease prevention. The most popular applications had scores ranging from 4.0 to 4.7 from a maximum score of 5.0 points. Of the five most popular, three belonged to the Android operational system and two to the Windows Phone operational system, of these, two propose to follow menstrual cycle, thus contemplating aspects of health promotion, and the others were games.

Conclusion The increasing use of information and communication technologies in the health area raises the need to include the concept of health care promotion using features such as mobile applications developed for smartphones and tablets. Therefore, the importance of adapting the contents of mobile devices is extended, extending its use to information and health education.