JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Mobile and wireless technology applied to help individuals to meet their health goals is called mobile health (mHealth). Under professional instructions, users will be able to track the most vital health parameters, which is highly essential due to the growing amount of organized and unstructured information provided by the widespread use of mHealth applications within different healthcare systems.

Objective:

In this study, the researcher will use the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to establish the role of performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), and facilitating conditions (FC) in determining mHealth application adoption intention. An important conclusion of the research is the influence of trust in the internet that plays a major mediating role between intention and actual adoption that offers some form of assurance to the user.

Methods:

The data of 448 students was used to test the proposed model on the basis of the partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results are informative to researchers, developers, and policymakers to improve the adoption of mHealth.

Results:

The results of the given research are relevant to the current body of literature, as they elaborate on the UTAUT model within the framework of adopting mHealth. Although earlier studies have largely been based on TAM and TPB, UTAUT is a more holistic model of user behaviour with respect to the adoption of new technologies. The findings can be used to say that intention to use plays a prominent role in determining actual adoption of mHealth applications.

Conclusions:

The findings can be used to say that intention to use plays a prominent role in determining actual adoption of mHealth applications. Policymakers and health care professionals must work on user issues and concerns, increase user confidence, improve service delivery, and use social influence to stimulate the adoption of mHealth.