The use of mobile health applications and health improvements

Abstract: Background: This thesis aims to investigate if the use of mobile health (mHealth) applications have positive effects on health.   Objectives: This research are to provide an insight of how people are using mHealth applications but also provide an insight of the target group. Additionally, the thesis will provide an analysis of the proposed Structural Equation Model (SEM) to understand the influencing factors (constructs) for health improvement.    Method: In this research a Structural Equation Model (SEM) approach was used in which a questionnaire with closed ended questions related to each construct were provided to collect the data. The data were analyzed by the computer program IBM SPSS 25 and the SEM was made by the IBM SPSS AMOS 25.   Results: The proposed theoretical SEM model showed validity and the proposed hypotheses 1 and 2 were significant for this model. The corresponding contributed construct to improve health, were “Healthcare Service” and “mHealth App Behavior”. “New Technology” did not contribute to improvement of health directly, but it correlated strongly to “Healthcare Service” but also to “mHealth App Behavior”.   Conclusions: The target group was defined as a group of early adopters who used mobile health applications and more specifically, they used fitness apps to enhance health. People in the target group were high educated and had occupations which corresponded well with their education. Additionally, this group used their knowledge by reading and understanding health information when they needed healthcare service to improve health.  Keywords: Adoption, Health, mHealth, New Technology