TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ng, Wei Ying
AU  - Lau, Ni Yin
AU  - Lee, V Vien
AU  - Vijayakumar, Smrithi
AU  - Leong, Qiao Ying
AU  - Ooi, Shu Qin Delicia
AU  - Su, Lin Lin
AU  - Lee, Yung Seng
AU  - Chan, Shiao-Yng
AU  - Blasiak, Agata
AU  - Ho, Dean
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/10/1
TI  - Shaping Adoption and Sustained Use Across the Maternal Journey: Qualitative Study on Perceived Usability and Credibility in Digital Health Tools
JO  - JMIR Hum Factors
SP  - e59269
VL  - 11
KW  - maternal and child health
KW  - conception
KW  - pregnancy
KW  - perinatal care
KW  - postpartum
KW  - maternal care
KW  - obstetric care
KW  - user engagement
KW  - Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology
KW  - femtech
AB  - Background: Maternal and child health outcomes are positively influenced by early intervention, and digital health (DH) tools provide the potential for a low-cost and scalable solution such as informational platforms or digital tracking tools. Despite the wide availability of DH tools out there for women from before to after pregnancy, user engagement remains low. Objective: This study aims to explore the factors that shape women’s DH adoption and sustained use across the maternal journey from preconception to postbirth, to improve user engagement with DH tools. Methods: One-hour semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted with 44 women from before to after pregnancy (age range 21-40 years) about their experiences with DH. This study is part of a larger study on women’s maternal experiences with health care and DH and focuses on the factors that affected women’s DH adoption and sustained use. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Five main themes and 10 subthemes were identified that affected women’s adoption and sustained use of DH tools. These included themes on their preexisting attitudes to DH, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived credibility, and perceived value of the tool. Conclusions: The themes that emerged were fully or partially mapped according to the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 model. The applicability of the model and the need to consider specific cultural nuances in the Asian context (such as the importance of trust and social influence) are discussed. The interaction of the 5 themes with DH adoption and sustained use are explored with different themes being relevant at various points of the DH adoption journey. The insights gained serve to inform future DH design and implementation of tools for women to optimize their DH engagement and the benefits they derive from it. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05099900; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05099900 
SN  - 2292-9495
UR  - https://humanfactors.jmir.org/2024/1/e59269
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/59269
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/39352732
DO  - 10.2196/59269
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/59269
ER  -