JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, South Korea has been making various efforts to overcome the pandemic. One of them is to provide app-based COVID-19-related services. As the pandemic appears to be prolonged, a need for various apps has emerged.

Objective:

We attempted to find users’ acceptance and concerns about COVID-19-related apps and services in South Korea.

Methods:

We collected data from 1,148 users from an online survey between November 11 and December 6, 2020. R (Ver. 3.6.1.) was used to determine which apps were most necessary; the acceptance of and concerns about various apps to overcome COVID-19 were also explored.

Results:

In total, 68.4% of the respondents showed high willingness to protect themselves from COVID-19 by using COVID-19-related apps. The epidemiological investigation app (62%) was marked as the most necessary app; the self-management app for self-isolation (54%), self-route management app (53%), COVID-19 symptom management app (42%), and mental health management app (24%) appeared next, in this order. Despite the high intention to use, people were also concerned about privacy issues and media exposure. Those who had an underlying disease and had experience using COVID-19-related apps, showed significantly higher intention to use the four apps. Last, although people were highly willing to participate in clinical trials for these apps, they were still concerned about privacy infringement. However, they showed willingness to use the clinical trial participation app.

Conclusions:

It is very important to target users to design and develop the most necessary apps to overcome COVID-19. In order to gain the public’s trust and make the apps available to as many people as possible, it is necessary to develop an app service in which privacy is maximally protected.