Factors Influencing Uptake and Use of a New Health Information App for Young People

Abstract

When young people need health information they are increasingly likely to use online sources and health apps (applications). Yet, these are not necessarily well-designed, reliable or appropriate, and research has primarily focused on adult use. Our study is the first to use qualitative mixed methods (focus groups and interviews) to apply the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to understand 26 young people’s uptake and use of a new, clinically-approved health app (application) for 16–25 year olds. We found that perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, social influences and trust, all differently impacted children and young people health-app acceptance and effectiveness. Implications for future research and young-person health-app development are discussed.

Keywords:

• Mobile application development
• health apps
• health information
• young people
• adolescents
• technology acceptance model (TAM)
• National Health Service (NHS)

Disclosure statement

This work was partly funded by J9 Consulting on behalf of the NHS Healthy London Partnership. The funder had no influence over the study design; the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; the writing of the report; and the decision to submit the manuscript for publication (although they were informed of this and our rights to publish were established prior to data collection). The manuscript was first drafted by the corresponding author. No grant or payment was given to anyone to produce the manuscript. We can confirm that there are no conflicts of interest in conducting or producing this research.

Notes

1 The United Kingdom’s biggest health website, receiving around 40 million visits per month (NHS Five Year Forward View, 2014).

2 Sample sizes ranged from N = 4 to N = 18 across four studies.

3 The NHS team requested including CYP up to 2 years younger than the target age, as they had received anecdotal feedback that children younger than aged 16 were finding the app to be useful.

4 The first version of NHSGo included some services restricted to London.

5 Extended to include parents or guardians for those under the age of 18.

6 Although, such findings have been found among adult-populations use of health-apps, there has been a dearth of studies to acknowledge that CYP have similar needs.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by J9 Consulting on behalf of the NHS Healthy London Partnership.