Keywords
Abstract
The use of Smartphone has become universal with little attention paid on health applications by phone users. Health applications on Smartphones are downloaded from various stores to inculcate positive health attitudes for an individual’s wellbeing. The study investigated the determinants of Smartphone health applications utilization among University of Lagos students, Nigeria. The study was guided by four null hypotheses. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study included all undergraduate students in University of Lagos. The sample of the study constituted of three hundred (300) respondents while simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used. The instrument used for data collection was a validated questionnaire with reliability of r= 0.92. Chi-square statistical analysis was used for data analysis. The finding of the study revealed that technical knowledge, awareness, student field of study and attitude of students have significant influence on the utilization of Smartphone health application. Local mobile app developers should increase their marketing and advertising strategies for students to increase students’ awareness, mobile apps should be designed in such a way that the field of study should be taken into consideration and hardware manufacturers should produce devices that have long battery life span to encourage positive attitude of the students towards the use of mobile health applications
References
Abu Saleh, M. M., Illhoi, Y., & Lincoln, S. (2011). A systematic review of healthcare applications for smartphones. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6947/12/67
Ammenwerth, E., Buchauer, A., Bludau, B, & Haux, R. (2000). Mobile information and communication tools in the hospital. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 57, 21-40.
Banitsas, K. A., Georgiadis, P., Tachakra, S., & Cavouras, D. (2004). Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society,. 2nd edition. San Franscisco, CA: IEEE: IEMBS’04. 26th Annual International Conference of the IEEE; 2004:3105-3108.
Bardram, J. E. (2005). Activity-based computing: support for mobility and collaboration in ubiquitous computing. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 9, 312-322.
Bardram, J. E., & Bossen, C. (2005). Mobility work: The spatial dimension of collaboration at a hospital. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 14, 131-160.
Burdette, S. D., Herchline, T. E., & Oehler, R. (2008). Practicing medicine in a technological age: Using smartphones in clinical practice. Clin Infect Dis, 47, 117-122.
Dolan, B. (2012). 12 trends for mobile health in 2012. Retrieved from: http://mobihea lthnews.com/16310/12-trendsfor-mobile-health-in-2012/#more-16310.
Fukuoka, Y., Komatsu, J., & Suarez, L., (2011). The mPED randomized controlled clinical trial: Applying mobile persuasive technologies to increase physical activity in sedentary women protocol. BMSPublic Health.11(1), 933.
Peskin, S. (2010). Is mobile health revolution made for managed care? Managed Care,. Retrieved from: http://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/1012/1012.mobile.html.
Riley, W., Rivera, D., & Atienza, A. (2011). Health behavior models in the age of mobile interventions: Are our theories up to the task? Translational Behavioral Medicine Practice, Policy, Research. Retrieved from: http://www.springerlink.com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/content/ i963 583533g56088/fulltext.pdf.
Sarasohn-Kahn, J. (2010). How smartphones are changing health care for consumers and providers. California HealthCare Foundation. Retrieved from: http://www.chcf.org/ publications/2010/04/howsmartphones-are-changing-health-care-for-consumers-and-providers.
Sherwood-Smith, J., & Pritchard-Jones, R. (2012). Medical applications: The future of regulation. Ann R Coll Surg Engl. 94, 12-13.
USDHHS (2010). Healthy people 2020. Health communications and health information technology objectives. Washington, DC, 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.healthypeople. gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/objectiveslist.aspx?topicid=18.
Wu, R. C., Morra, D., Quan, S., Lai, S., Zanjani, S., Abrams, H., & Rossos, P. G. (2010). The use of smartphones for clinical communication on internal medicine wards. J Hosp Med, 5, 553-559.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2021 Array