Abstract
Recent advancements in mHealth apps and services have played a vital role in strengthening healthcare services and enabling their accessibility to marginalized people. With the alarming rise in COVID-19 infection rates around the world, there appears to be an urgent call to modernize traditional medical practices to combat the pandemic. This study aims to investigate the key factors influencing the trialability of mHealth apps/services and behavioral intention to adopt mobile health applications. The study also examines the moderating effects of self-discipline motivation, knowledge, and attitude on the relationship between trialability and behavioral intention to use. The deductive reasoning approach was followed in a positivism paradigm. The study used convenience sampling and collected responses from 280 Generation Y participants in Bangladesh. Partial least square-based structural equation modeling was employed. The results revealed that relative advantage (β = 0.229, p < 0.05), compatibility (β = 0.232, p < 0.05), complexity (β = −0.411, p < 0.05), and observability (β = 0.235, p < 0.05) of mHealth apps influence the trialability of mHealth apps and services among users. Trialability compatibility (β = 0.425, p < 0.05) of mHealth was positively related to the behavioral intention to use these mobile apps. The study found no moderating effects of attitude (β = 0.043, p > 0.05) or self-discipline motivation (β = −0.007, p > 0.05) on the hypothesized relationships. The empirical findings of this study may facilitate the development, design process, and implementation of mHealth applications with improved features that can lead to high user acceptance among Generation Y during future health crises.
Highlights
Introduction iationsWith the rapid advancement of information and communication technology in the startup phase of the industry 4.0 age, mobile applications are becoming more prevalent in a variety of fields that appeal primarily to young people [1–3]
This study looked into the connections between Rogers’ perceived characteristics of innovation and behavioral intention to use mHealth apps among Generation Y using the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory [35]
The results indicate that the relationships between relative advantage and trialability of mHealth (t = 3.071, β = 0.229, p < 0.05), compatibility and trialability of mHealth (t = 2.796, β = 0.232, p < 0.05), complexity and trialability of mHealth (t = 4.776, β = -0.411, p < 0.05), observability and trialability of mHealth (t = 2.941, β = 0.235, p < 0.05), and trialability of mHealth and behavioral intention to use mHealth apps (t = 4.022, β = 0.415, p < 0.05) were significant
Summary
Introduction iationsWith the rapid advancement of information and communication technology in the startup phase of the industry 4.0 age, mobile applications are becoming more prevalent in a variety of fields that appeal primarily to young people [1–3]. The COVID-19 pandemic gives rise to the wide use of health applications, as non-pharmaceutical measures including social distance, isolation, and lockdown are enacted to reduce the number of unnecessary visits of people with compromised immune systems to sensitive locations to contain transmission [4–7]. These applications enable patients and doctors to stay connected while tracking COVID-19 cases and developing prevention strategies [8–10]. Young adults in Bangladesh have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 [11] This population frequents the workplace, congregates in public places, and has a false sense of security, thereby transmitting the disease to the other age groups unwittingly [12]
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