Previously submitted to: JMIR Mental Health (no longer under consideration since Nov 02, 2022)
Date Submitted: Oct 28, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The use of mhealth apps for improving users’ psychological empowerment during the Covid-19 pandemic: the moderating role of event characteristics
ABSTRACT
Background:
Due to the rapid penetration of mobile devices worldwide, huge potential exists for mobile health (mHealth) to enhance accessibility to specialist clinical diagnostics and treatment advice. mHealth, providing health-related services through mobile devices and applications, offers accessible and cost-effective solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. How there is little information about the mechanims of mhealth apps for improving users’ psychological empowerment during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Objective:
Based on the technology acceptance model, empowerment theory and event theory,the aim of this study is to explore the imapct of mHealth characteristic factors (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) and pandemic characteristic factors (event novelty, event criticality and event disruption) on user's mHealth app use and psychological empowerment of mHealth users.
Methods:
A sequential mixed-method investigation was conducted between May 2020, examing thoughts, feeling, and behaviors of mHealth app users associated with the pademic, including a questionnaire survey of mHealth app users and a complementary qualitative analysis of articles and reviews of mHealth apps in China. A quantitative study with 402 Chinese mHealth users during the COVID-19 pandemic was used to validate the theoretical model. A follow-up qualitative study of 191 online articles and reviews about mHealth during the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted to cross-validate the results and explain unsupported findings from the quantitative study.
Results:
The results show that (1) mHealth app characteristics (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) positively affect mHealth app use; (2) mHealth app use positively affects the psychological empowerment of mHealth users; and (3) the characteristics of pandemic events (event criticality and event disruption) have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between mHealth app characteristics and mHealth app use.
Conclusions:
This study explains the role of mHealth apps in COVID-19 pandemic events at the micro level, which has implications mHealth app operators regarding the use of mHealth for improving users’ psychological empowerment during pandemics.
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Copyright
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