Factors Affecting mHealth Technology Adoption in Developing Countries: The Case of Egypt

Mobile health apps are seeing rapid growth in the potential to improve access to healthcare services for disadvantaged communities, while enhancing the efficiency of the healthcare delivery value chain. Still, the adoption of mHealth apps is relatively low, especially in developing countries. In Egypt, an initiative for national-level healthcare coverage was launched in 2021, accompanied by a rise in mHealth start-ups. However, many of these projects did not progress beyond the pilot stage, with very little known about the antecedents of mHealth adoption for the Egyptian user. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 Egyptians, aiming to uncover factors affecting the use of mHealth apps for Egyptian citizens. Some of these factors were introduced by previous studies, such as Perceived Service Quality, Perceived Risk, Perceived Ease of Use, and Trust. Others were not well established in the mHealth research strand, such as Perceived Reputation and Perceived Familiarity, while Governance, Personalized Experience, Explain-ability, Interaction, Language, and Cultural Issues, are novel factors introduced by the current research. The effect of these suggested independent variables on the willingness to adopt mHealth apps was validated using a survey administered to 150 Egyptians, confirming the significant positive effect of most of these factors on mHealth adoption in Egypt. This research contributes to methodology by introducing novel constructs in the mHealth research context, which might be specific to the target developing country. Practical implications were suggested for designers and healthcare service providers might increase the adoption of their apps in developing countries, such as Egypt.