Factors Motivating the Adoption of Self-Healthcare Monitoring Mobile Applications by the South African Youth

The global burden of non-communicable diseases requires multi-facetted, preventive and curative interventions. The diseases are no longer attributed to “old age” but are increasingly becoming prevalent amongst young people. Hence, there is a need for preventive and curative interventions that are particularly appealing to young people. The wide adoption of mobile technologies amongst the youth, especially in developing countries, makes mobile health interventions appealing to the youth. Thus, self-healthcare monitoring applications could be widely adopted by the youth, if designed in a way that is appealing to them. It is in this context that this paper investigates factors that could influence the use of self-healthcare monitoring mobile applications by the South African youth. From a sample of 280 students conveniently sampled from an institution of higher learning in South Africa, findings reveal that factors that motivate the use of mobile self-healthcare applications include results demonstrability, performance expectancy factors, savings, social aspects, awareness, connectivity, accessibility, ease of use, privacy, user satisfaction and affordability. Hence, this paper advocates for a multi-stakeholder approach to ensure that these factors are taken into consideration during the design and implementation of such mHealth applications.