Facilitators and barriers to the adoption of mHealth apps for COVID-19 contact tracing: a systematic review of the literature

Sujarwoto Sujarwoto; Asri Maharani

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1222600

Facilitators and barriers to the adoption of mHealth apps for COVID-19 contact tracing: a systematic review of the literature

Front Public Health. 2023 Dec 7:11:1222600. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1222600. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Sujarwoto Sujarwoto¹, Asri Maharani²

Affiliations

¹ Portsmouth Brawijaya Center for Global Health, Population and Policy and Department of Public Administration, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, Indonesia.
² Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Background: Despite the enormous potential of mobile health (mHealth) apps for COVID-19 contact tracing, the adoption rate in most countries remains low. Thus, the objective of the current study is to identify facilitators and barriers of mHealth apps adoption for COVID-19 contact tracing based on existing studies.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review of mHealth studies before December 2021 that evaluate facilitators and barriers associated with the adoption of mHealth apps for COVID-19 contact tracing. We assessed the risk of bias for all included studies using the Cochrane tool. We based our narrative synthesis on the facilitators-barriers to the adoption of mHealth framework comprising seven key factors.

Results: A total of 27 articles were reviewed from 16 countries representing high income countries (France, German, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Singapore, Belgium, Republic Ireland, Netherland, Poland, and Japan), middle-income countries (Fiji), and low-middle income countries (India). We identified the main facilitators of mHealth adoption: perceived risks to COVID-19, trust, perceived benefit, social norm, and technology readiness. The main barriers of mHealth adoption were data privacy/security concerns. Among sociodemographic factors, females, lower education, lower-income, and older individual are barriers to adoption in low-middle income countries, while most of those factors were not significantly associated with adoption in a high-income country.

Conclusion: The findings imply that resolving data privacy/security issues while developing trust, perceived benefits, social norms, and technology preparedness could be effective strategies for increasing adoption intentions and app use among the general public. In low-middle-income countries, addressing digital divide is critical to the app's adoption.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=249500, identifier RD42021249500 (PROSPERO).

Keywords: COVID-19 contact tracing; barriers; facilitators; mHealth apps adoption; systematic review.

Publication types

Systematic Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

COVID-19* / epidemiology
Contact Tracing
Humans
Mobile Applications*
Privacy
Telemedicine*
United States

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was funded by the Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP), Ministry of Finance, Indonesia, based on Decision Letter Number KEP-43/LPDP/2019 dated June 26, 2019; Decision Letter Number KEP-20/LPDP/2021 dated March 10, 2021; Cooperative Agreement to participate in the International Collaboration-Productive Open Call Research Funding scheme, based on Number PRJ-71/LPDP/2021; Number: 05/DIPI/2021; and Number 648/UN10.C10/PN/2021 dated April 14, 2021 for Research Grant Number RISPRO/KI/B1/TKL/5/15129/1/2021.