School of Humanities and Management, Guilin Medical University, Guilin, Guangxi, China.
School of Marxism, Guilin Medical University, Guilin, Guangxi, China.
Sci Rep. 2024 Oct 26;14(1):25469. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-75410-4.
Mobile technology has significantly accelerated the rapid development of healthcare services. Despite the convenience brought by the proliferation of mobile health (mHealth) apps, the challenge of promoting their continued use among patients has garnered attention from many scholars and administrators. Based on the Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM), this study explores the impact of quality elements on the continuance intention of mHealth apps in Southwest China's ethnic minority regions. Researchers conducted a structured questionnaire survey on 337 users of mHealth apps in these regions to measure their self-reported responses to seven constructs: information quality, system quality, service quality, perceived usefulness, confirmation, satisfaction, and continuance intention. The study uses the structural equation model-artificial neural network (SEM-ANN) approach to interpret the compensatory and non-linear relationships between predictors and continuance intention. The findings reveal that user satisfaction and perceived usefulness significantly predict the continuance intention to use mHealth apps. All other relationships were confirmed except for the non-significant relationships between service quality and confirmation, service quality and perceived usefulness, and system quality and perceived usefulness. Furthermore, based on the normalized importance obtained from the multilayer perceptron, the most critical predictors identified were satisfaction (100%), followed by information quality (70.2%), perceived usefulness (43.2%), system quality (25.1%), and confirmation (17.6%). Finally, this study presents theoretical and practical implications for the continuance intention towards mHealth apps in Southwest China's ethnic minority regions.
移动技术极大地加速了医疗保健服务的快速发展。尽管移动健康 (mHealth) 应用程序的普及带来了便利，但促进患者持续使用这些应用程序的挑战引起了许多学者和管理人员的关注。本研究基于期望确认模型 (ECM)，探讨了质量要素对中国西南少数民族地区 mHealth 应用程序持续使用意向的影响。研究人员对这些地区的 337 名 mHealth 应用程序用户进行了结构问卷调查，以衡量他们对七个构念的自我报告反应：信息质量、系统质量、服务质量、感知有用性、确认、满意度和持续使用意向。该研究采用结构方程模型-人工神经网络 (SEM-ANN) 方法来解释预测因素和持续使用意向之间的补偿和非线性关系。研究结果表明，用户满意度和感知有用性显著预测 mHealth 应用程序的持续使用意向。除服务质量与确认、服务质量与感知有用性以及系统质量与感知有用性之间的非显著关系外，所有其他关系均得到证实。此外，基于多层感知机获得的归一化重要性，确定最关键的预测因素是满意度（100%），其次是信息质量（70.2%）、感知有用性（43.2%）、系统质量（25.1%）和确认（17.6%）。最后，本研究为中国西南少数民族地区 mHealth 应用程序的持续使用意向提供了理论和实践意义。
