PNS113 ASSESSING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' USAGE, ATTITUDE, AND BEHAVIOR TOWARDS MOBILE HEALTH APPLICATIONS (MHEALTH APPS)

Abstract

The study explored University students’ utilization, attitude, and behavior towards mHealth apps and investigated subgroup variations in mHealth app use. The survey was administered to the students of St. John’s University, Jamaica, New York. A non-experimental cross-sectional survey was employed. An in-person, paper and pencil-based survey method were used to collect data. Data was analyzed on SPSS 24. The survey of 251/260 students were included with a response rate of 96.54%. Amongst 54.98% were users and 45.02% were non-users of mHealth apps. The use of mHealth apps found high in females 59% than males 44.5%. A majority 78.5% of participants reported themselves as IOS users and 20.7% as Android users. Nearly 38% of respondents use their mHealth apps a few times a week followed by a few times a day 15.9% and once a day 15.2%. Among users, 94.9% reported the use of mHealth apps for wellness management and 26.8% reported the use of mHealth apps for disease and treatment. Approximately 82% of users selected mHealth apps for physical activity/fitness purposes, 42.8% as a food-calorie counter and 42% for dieting/weight loss. About 70% of the participants mentioned ease of use of the app as an important factor for choosing a particular mHealth app, followed by 60% who mentioned usefulness. Other considerations found were reviews/ratings 48.6%, and price 42%. With nonusers, almost half 49.6% of the respondents marked lack of usefulness/don’t find useful as the most important factor for not using mHealth apps followed by lack of knowledge/availability 38.1%. The mean and standard deviations were 7.92 (1.50) and 7.11 (1.71) for attitude-behavior respectively out of a possible score range of 2 to 10. The results revealed the user students of mHealth apps outnumbered non-users and possess a positive attitude and behavior towards mHealth apps.