A study on the context/contents-related value to affect the intention to use Mobile Healthcare Application: Focused on 40-year-old and over in Korea

Abstract

As smartphone penetration increases and its technology is advanced, lots of various mobile services come out in the market. Therefore, old people as well as young people can use the mobile services with their smartphone. Mobile Healthcare Application (MHA) service is specifically highlighted for the phenomena, Global aging & well-being trend in the world. MHA services can give a lot of benefits for old people to manage their health at home with smartphone and some extra devices. People can use MHA services at anytime and anywhere because of the characteristic of MHA, ubiquitous. In spite of the great advantages, however, MHA services have had little attention so far, so there is little empirical literature about MHA services toward old people. This research develops a research model consisting of context/content related perceived values to explain the intention to use a Mobile Healthcare Application service towards the baby boomers and old adults. To carry out this research, an online survey was conducted of MHA users and recognizers who are over 40-year-old in Korea. 313 respondents gave right data and that data was analyzed by structural equation model (SEM) to obtain some results from the data. Except for reassurance and emotional (enjoyment) value, other content-related values (Usefulness and Convenience value) positively affect the intention to use to a Mobile Healthcare Application under all of the context-related values (Conditional value representing health stress and Epistemic value). The findings indicate that people who have health stress and are interested in a new way to control their health have a lot of interest in MHA services. It is true that people can use the MHA service whenever and wherever they want, so it is very convenient and useful, but they do not think that MHA is not that beneficial to them. That is because the current level of MHA services is too low to satisfy people’ expectation and needs. Hence, market-oriented approach that fi...