A QUALITATIVE STUDY IN MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER ADULTS OF SINGAPORE AND THEIR EXPERIENCES WITH MHEALTH TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

With the increasing life expectancy of Singaporeans and Singapore having one of the best healthcare standards in the region, the Singapore population is expected to continue increasing throughout the coming years. However, as Singapore’s population demographics shifts towards the elderly population, there is – and will be – a steep increase in demand for healthcare as the elderly generally have weaker immune systems and are more susceptible to diseases. In particular, chronic diseases require a relatively higher level of healthcare services such as maintenance and monitoring. As such, there is a concern regarding a lack of sufficient healthcare professionals to meet the growing demand for healthcare services. Thus, mobile health (mHealth) might be the solution to meet the increasing demand for healthcare, where patients can self-monitor and self-manage their illnesses. Certain processes may also be replaced by mHealth. However, even with greater technological advances in the implementation of mHealth, its success will require a high adoption rate and cooperation from patients to fully make use of health technology. Hence, this study seeks to employ the use of Rogers (2003) Diffusion of Innovation theory to frame and explore the motivations and barriers of adoption of a simple, and mass adopted mHealth technology (i.e. the fitness tracker and Healthy 365 application). Findings showed that the technology has all five factors affecting the rate of adoption, namely (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) complexity, (4) trialability and (5) observability, which contribute to the motivations and barriers in the adoption of the step tracker and application.