Abstract
BackgroundThe last decade has seen a substantial increase in the use of mobile health apps and research into the effects of those apps on health and health behaviors. In parallel, research has aimed at identifying population subgroups that are more likely to use those health apps. Current evidence is limited by two issues. First, research has focused on broad health apps, and little is known about app usage for a specific health behavior. Second, research has focused on comparing current users and current nonusers, without considering subgroups of nonusers.ObjectiveWe aimed to provide profile distributions of current users, previous users, and informed nonusers, and to identify predictor variables relevant for profile classification.MethodsData were available from 1683 people who participated in a Dutch walking event in Amsterdam that was held in September 2017. They provided information on demographics, self-reported walking behavior, and walking app usage, as well as items from User Acceptance of Information Technology, in an online survey. Data were analyzed using discriminant function analysis and multinomial logistic regression analysis.ResultsMost participants were current walking app users (899/1683, 53.4%), while fewer participants were informed nonusers (663/1683, 39.4%) and very few were previous walking app users (121/1683, 7.2%). Current walking app users were more likely to report walking at least 5 days per week and for at least 30 minutes per bout (odds ratio [OR] 1.44, 95% CI 1.11-1.85; P=.005) and more likely to be overweight (OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.24-2.37; P=.001) or obese (OR 1.49, 95% CI 1.08-2.08; P=.005) as compared with informed nonusers. Further, current walking app users perceived their walking apps to be less boring, easy to use and retrieve information, and more helpful to achieve their goals. Effect sizes ranged from 0.10 (95% CI 0.08-0.30) to 1.58 (95% CI 1.47-1.70).ConclusionsThe distributions for walking app usage appeared different from the distributions for more general health app usage. Further, the inclusion of two specific subgroups of nonusers (previous users and informed nonusers) provides important information for health practitioners and app developers to stimulate continued walking app usage, including making information in those apps easy to understand and making it easy to obtain information from the apps, as well as preventing apps from becoming boring and difficult to use for goal attainment.
Highlights
BackgroundThe immense popularity of smartphones in the past decade has led to a large number of mobile health apps for those smartphones
Mobile health apps tend to focus on physical activity patterns, arguably because the built-in GPS of smartphones allows for an unobtrusive way to monitor those activity patterns
Zhao et al [4] found that 17 out of 23 eligible mobile app intervention studies reported positive effects on physical activity behaviors. These findings echo earlier findings from Bort-Roig et al [5], who found that four out of five physical activity mobile app intervention studies increased physical activity, while Fanning et al [7] performed a meta-analysis of 11 mobile app physical activity intervention studies and found a moderate-to-large effect size increase in physical activity for interventions using mobile apps when compared with control conditions
Summary
BackgroundThe immense popularity of smartphones in the past decade has led to a large number of mobile health apps for those smartphones. Zhao et al [4] found that 17 out of 23 eligible mobile app intervention studies reported positive effects on physical activity behaviors. Methods: Data were available from 1683 people who participated in a Dutch walking event in Amsterdam that was held in September 2017 They provided information on demographics, self-reported walking behavior, and walking app usage, as well as items from User Acceptance of Information Technology, in an online survey. The inclusion of two specific subgroups of nonusers (previous users and informed nonusers) provides important information for health practitioners and app developers to stimulate continued walking app usage, including making information in those apps easy to understand and making it easy to obtain information from the apps, as well as preventing apps from becoming boring and difficult to use for goal attainment
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