Advancing health-related abilities and behaviors via health apps: a large-scale survey from self-regulation perspective
ISSN: 1066-2243
Article publication date: 16 May 2022
Issue publication date: 4 July 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Motivated by the need for research on the relationship between health app usage and health-related outcomes in the form of health status and life satisfaction, this study builds on self-regulation theory to construct a research model for elucidating how health app quality affects health information literacy, health app usage and physical activity.
Design/methodology/approach
To empirically validate the proposed research model, a large-scale questionnaire survey on health app usage was administered on a sample of 6,948 respondents recruited from a university in China. Structural equation modeling was employed for data analysis.
Findings
Empirical findings demonstrate that health app quality positively affects self-regulation with respect to health app usage, health information literacy and physical activity. Taken together, these self-regulated behaviors drive health-related outcomes for health status and life satisfaction.
Originality/value
This study advances extant literature on health app usage through the application of self-regulation theory to investigate the effects of technological interventions in healthcare. Findings offer practical implications for how health apps can be leveraged to realize positive health-related outcomes.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors warmly acknowledge the support received from 2021 General Projects of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province (2021SJA0046), the Zhejiang Soft Science Programme (2021C35017), the Ningbo Commonweal Science and Technology Fund (202002N3138), the Fundamental Research Funds of Humanities and Social Science Research for the Central Universities of China (SKYC2021023) and 2021 Shuang Chuang Doctoral Program in Jiangsu Province (JSSCBS20210268). This work is developed based on a research-in-progress paper published in the 23rd Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2019 Proceedings, 82).
Conflict of interest: The authors declare that this research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as potential conflicts of interest.
Citation
Fu, S., Fang, J., Cai, Z., Lim, E.T.K., Tan, C.-W. and Yang, H. (2022), "Advancing health-related abilities and behaviors via health apps: a large-scale survey from self-regulation perspective", Internet Research, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 1097-1130. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-09-2020-0485
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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