Risk of Fear and Anxiety in Utilising Health App Surveillance Due to COVID-19: Gender Differences Analysis

Adi Alsyouf, Ra’ed Masa’deh, Moteb Albugami, Mohammad Al-Bsheish, Abdalwali Lutfi and Nizar Alsubahi
Additional contact information
Adi Alsyouf: Department of Managing Health Services and Hospitals, College of Business (COB), Faculty of Business Rabigh, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 344, Jeddah 21991, Saudi Arabia
Ra’ed Masa’deh: Department of Management Information Systems, School of Business, University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan
Moteb Albugami: Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business (COB) Rabigh, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 344, Jeddah 21991, Saudi Arabia
Mohammad Al-Bsheish: Department of Healthcare Administration, Batterjee Medical College (BMC), P.O. Box 6231, Jeddah 21442, Saudi Arabia
Abdalwali Lutfi: Department of Accounting, College of Business Administration, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa 31982, Saudi Arabia
Nizar Alsubahi: Department of Managing Health Services and Hospitals, College of Business (COB), Faculty of Business Rabigh, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 344, Jeddah 21991, Saudi Arabia

Risks, 2021, vol. 9, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: Although technology trends and acceptance have been considered crucial topics, limited research has examined stress-specific factors such as health anxiety in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic based on people’s attitudes toward a mobile health app using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Accordingly, this study primarily highlights the psychological determinants stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic that affect the usage of a mobile health app. The study followed a cross-sectional design and adopted a snowball sampling technique to collect the data. The findings showed a significant association between perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and event-related fear and Tabaud App intention. The relationships between Tabaud App intention and COVID-19 anxiety on Tabaud App usage were also revealed. The study found a significant association between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Additionally, the multi-group analysis showed that only two paths related to Tabaud App intention, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, differed significantly between males and females. Additionally, women experienced anxiety disorders more than men. The study contributes to the previous knowledge on the field by examining the psychological determinants resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic that influence using a mobile health app, namely, event-related fear and COVID-19 anxiety. The study results may help governments, health policymakers, and health organisations in Saudi Arabia contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; TAM; mHealth; anxiety; event-related fear; Saudi Arabia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C G0 G1 G2 G3 K2 M2 M4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/9/10/179/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/9/10/179/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jrisks:v:9:y:2021:i:10:p:179-:d:651506

Access Statistics for this article

Risks is currently edited by Mr. Claude Zhang

More articles in Risks from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().