PMID- 31899454
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20210401
LR  - 20210401
IS  - 2291-5222 (Electronic)
IS  - 2291-5222 (Linking)
VI  - 8
IP  - 1
DP  - 2020 Jan 3
TI  - Applicability of the User Engagement Scale to Mobile Health: A Survey-Based 
      Quantitative Study.
PG  - e13244
LID - 10.2196/13244 [doi]
LID - e13244
AB  - BACKGROUND: There has recently been exponential growth in the development and use 
      of health apps on mobile phones. As with most mobile apps, however, the majority 
      of users abandon them quickly and after minimal use. One of the most critical 
      factors for the success of a health app is how to support users' commitment to 
      their health. Despite increased interest from researchers in mobile health, few 
      studies have examined the measurement of user engagement with health apps. 
      OBJECTIVE: User engagement is a multidimensional, complex phenomenon. The aim of 
      this study was to understand the concept of user engagement and, in particular, 
      to demonstrate the applicability of a user engagement scale (UES) to mobile 
      health apps. METHODS: To determine the measurability of user engagement in a 
      mobile health context, a UES was employed, which is a psychometric tool to 
      measure user engagement with a digital system. This was adapted to Ada, developed 
      by Ada Health, an artificial intelligence-powered personalized health guide that 
      helps people understand their health. A principal component analysis (PCA) with 
      varimax rotation was conducted on 30 items. In addition, sum scores as means of 
      each subscale were calculated. RESULTS: Survey data from 73 Ada users were 
      analyzed. PCA was determined to be suitable, as verified by the sampling adequacy 
      of Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin=0.858, a significant Bartlett test of sphericity 
      (chi(2)(300)=1127.1; P<.001), and communalities mostly within the 0.7 range. 
      Although 5 items had to be removed because of low factor loadings, the results of 
      the remaining 25 items revealed 4 attributes: perceived usability, aesthetic 
      appeal, reward, and focused attention. Ada users showed the highest engagement 
      level with perceived usability, with a value of 294, followed by aesthetic 
      appeal, reward, and focused attention. CONCLUSIONS: Although the UES was deployed 
      in German and adapted to another digital domain, PCA yielded consistent subscales 
      and a 4-factor structure. This indicates that user engagement with health apps 
      can be assessed with the German version of the UES. These results can benefit 
      related mobile health app engagement research and may be of importance to 
      marketers and app developers.
CI  - (c)Marianne Holdener, Alain Gut, Alfred Angerer. Originally published in JMIR 
      mHealth and uHealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 03.01.2020.
FAU - Holdener, Marianne
AU  - Holdener M
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0001-5617-8332
AD  - Winterthur Institute of Health Economics, School of Management and Law, Zurich 
      University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland.
FAU - Gut, Alain
AU  - Gut A
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0003-2351-8120
AD  - IBM Switzerland Ltd, Zurich, Switzerland.
FAU - Angerer, Alfred
AU  - Angerer A
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0002-6829-0433
AD  - Winterthur Institute of Health Economics, School of Management and Law, Zurich 
      University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur, Switzerland.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20200103
PL  - Canada
TA  - JMIR Mhealth Uhealth
JT  - JMIR mHealth and uHealth
JID - 101624439
SB  - IM
MH  - Artificial Intelligence
MH  - Confidentiality
MH  - Humans
MH  - *Mobile Applications/statistics & numerical data
MH  - Qualitative Research
MH  - Surveys and Questionnaires
MH  - *Telemedicine
PMC - PMC6969386
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - chatbot
OT  - measurement
OT  - mhealth
OT  - mobile apps
OT  - mobile health
OT  - user engagement
OT  - user engagement scale
COIS- Conflicts of Interest: None declared.
EDAT- 2020/01/04 06:00
MHDA- 2021/04/02 06:00
PMCR- 2020/01/03
CRDT- 2020/01/04 06:00
PHST- 2018/12/30 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2019/09/05 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2019/07/15 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2020/01/04 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2020/01/04 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2021/04/02 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2020/01/03 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - v8i1e13244 [pii]
AID - 10.2196/13244 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2020 Jan 3;8(1):e13244. doi: 10.2196/13244.