JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Digital contact tracing apps (CTAs) have become prevalent worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in the first quarter of 2020. Specifically, they have been developed to fast-track the identification and self-isolation of individuals who must have been exposed to the COVID-19 coronavirus by being in close contact with infected persons. However, their uptake has been low and slow due to a number of factors, which have been speculated in the gray and academic literature, for example, privacy concerns, lack of trust, poor persuasive design, etc. However, there is little understanding of the overall factors that hinder or facilitate the acceptance and adoption of CTAs from the viewpoint of the users. According to Zhang et al., “There is a dearth of evidence [especially based on systematic reviews] regarding the barriers and facilitators to uptake and engagement with COVID-19 digital contact tracing applications.” Although a handful of systematic reviews have been carried out, the majority of them were not related to technology acceptance. Moreover, they were conducted at the early stage of the pandemic in 2020 when only few peer-reviewed empirical studies had been conducted and published. Specifically, systematic reviews such as Braithwaite et al., Davalbhakta et al. and Juneau et al. were not particularly focused on technology acceptance aimed to uncover the facilitators and barriers militating against CTA adoption. Hence, a systematic review of the existing literature is necessary to understand users’ perceptions, including the factors that facilitate the adoption of CTAs, the barriers and challenges militating against their adoption, the measures being taken to tackle the challenges, and the moderating effect of demographic/human factors. The findings will uncover available opportunities to increase the design, adoption and effectiveness of CTAs in future iterations.