Yuduang Nattakit, Ong Ardvin Kester S, Prasetyo Yogi Tri, Chuenyindee Thanatorn, Kusonwattana Poonyawat, Limpasart Waranya, Sittiwatethanasiri Thaninrat, Gumasing Ma Janice J, German Josephine D, Nadlifatin Reny
School of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Mapúa University, 658 Muralla St., Intramuros, Manila 1002, Philippines.
School of Graduate Studies, Mapúa University, 658 Muralla St., Intramuros, Manila 1002, Philippines.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 May 6;19(9):5643. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19095643.
COVID-19 contact-tracing mobile applications have been some of the most important tools during the COVID-19 pandemic. One preventive measure that has been incorporated to help reduce the virus spread is the strict implementation of utilizing a COVID-19 tracing application, such as the MorChana mobile application of Thailand. This study aimed to evaluate the factors affecting the actual usage of the MorChana mobile application. Through the integration of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2), latent variables such as performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), hedonic motivation (HM), habit (HB), perceived risk (PCR), self-efficacy (SEF), privacy (PR), trust (TR), and understanding COVID-19 (U) were considered to measure the intention to use MorChana (IU) and the actual usage (AU) of the mobile application. This study considered 907 anonymous participants who voluntarily answered an online self-administered survey collected via convenience sampling. The results show that IU presented the highest significant effect on AU, followed by HB, HM, PR, FC, U, SEF, PE, EE, TR, and SI. This is evident due to the strict implementation of using mobile applications upon entering any area of the vicinity. Moreover, PCR was not seen to be a significant latent factor affecting AU. This study is the first to have evaluated mobile contact tracing in Thailand. The integrated framework can be applied and extended to determine factors affecting COVID-19 tracing applications in other countries. Moreover, the findings of this study could be applied to other health-related mobile applications worldwide.
在新冠疫情期间，新冠病毒接触者追踪移动应用程序一直是一些最重要的工具。为帮助减少病毒传播而纳入的一项预防措施是严格实施使用新冠病毒追踪应用程序，比如泰国的MorChana移动应用程序。本研究旨在评估影响MorChana移动应用程序实际使用情况的因素。通过整合保护动机理论（PMT）和技术接受与使用统一理论（UTAUT2），考虑了诸如绩效期望（PE）、努力期望（EE）、社会影响（SI）、促进条件（FC）、享乐动机（HM）、习惯（HB）、感知风险（PCR）、自我效能感（SEF）、隐私（PR）、信任（TR）以及对新冠病毒的了解（U）等潜在变量，以衡量使用MorChana的意愿（IU）和该移动应用程序的实际使用情况（AU）。本研究纳入了907名匿名参与者，他们通过便利抽样自愿回答了一份在线自填式调查问卷。结果显示，IU对AU的影响最为显著，其次是HB、HM、PR、FC、U、SEF、PE、EE、TR和SI。这一点很明显，因为进入附近任何区域时都严格要求使用移动应用程序。此外，PCR并未被视为影响AU的显著潜在因素。本研究是首次对泰国的移动接触者追踪进行评估。该综合框架可加以应用和扩展，以确定影响其他国家新冠病毒追踪应用程序的因素。此外，本研究的结果可应用于全球其他与健康相关的移动应用程序。
