Investigation of mobile health applications usage among university students : IIUM case study /

With extensive use of mobile applications, health apps on the mobile devices are creating a 'market niche' of their own. As reports suggest one fifth of the smartphone owners have a health application. According to industry estimates, 500 million smartphone users worldwide will be using a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Qurashi, Junaid Mohammad
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Gombak, Selangor : Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology, International Islamic University Malaysia, 2016
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Online Access:http://studentrepo.iium.edu.my/handle/123456789/5433
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Summary:With extensive use of mobile applications, health apps on the mobile devices are creating a 'market niche' of their own. As reports suggest one fifth of the smartphone owners have a health application. According to industry estimates, 500 million smartphone users worldwide will be using a health care application by 2015, and by 2018, 50 percent of the more than 3.4 billion smartphone and tablet users will have downloaded mobile health applications. These users include health care professionals, consumers, and patients. It also seems to be too obvious that the younger tech-literate generation, for whom the communications technologies are inherent in daily life and social interaction, would be the predominant audience for m-health. However, to the date, limited attention had been given to the behaviour of users to such health applications and hence a good reason to pursue this research study. Using UTAUT model based on prior eight different models to assess the behavioural intention of a user, this study attempts to understand the perception of the users towards m-health applications freely available to be downloaded to take benefit from. The aim is to determine the relationship between the users' perceptions to the behaviour intention to use m-health application based on the constructs that define the benefits as well as the risk in using such applications. A survey method was conducted to collect the data. Thus, a total of 229 samples were collected. Analysis was carried out using t-test. The study found out that the essence of improving the quality of one's life had an important role to play in the behavioural intention to use such applications and also social influence was another major factor driving the necessity of m-health applications. The other factors such as the availability of infrastructure didn't cause any significant change in determining the intention to use m-health application, presumably, because of ubiquitous availability/use of Internet and mobile devices. Ironically, privacy was the only factor that is considered to be a risk when it comes to accessing m-health applications. While security and reliability seemingly have no part to play in driving or hindering one's intention to the use of m-health applications.
Item Description:Abstracts in English and Arabic.
Physical Description:xiii, 92 leaves : ill. ; 30cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-89).