Identification of critical quality dimensions for continuance intention in mHealth services: Case study of onecare service

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) services support the continuous health-related monitoring, feedback, and behavior modification of individuals and populations through the use of personal mobile communication devices. Poor service quality is a major reason why many users have discontinued using mHealth services. However, only a few studies have identified the critical quality components for continuance intention. The current study aims to identify the crucial quality dimensions for users’ continuance intention in an mHealth service called Onecare. This service provides various forms of support for the day-to-day health behavior monitoring of college students by utilizing daily behavior data. In this research, five major quality dimensions of mHealth services, namely, content quality, engagement, reliability, usability, and privacy, were derived from existing studies. The effect of each quality dimension on continuance intention was estimated by analyzing the survey responses of 191 Onecare service users. The quality dimension with the most considerable effect on continuance intention was determined to be engagement followed by content quality and reliability. By contrast, the effects of usability and privacy on continuance intention were insignificant. Furthermore, this study found that the optimal quality management strategy can change depending on the objective, i.e., to increase continuance intention or satisfaction. These results will help mHealth service managers allocate their limited resources to effectively and efficiently improve continuance intention. Future research is required to verify if the findings of this study are generalizable to any population because the sample used in this work was specific to Korean college students.