The influence of medical professionals’ perception on the use of mobile self-assessment health applications

The aim of this study is to investigate to what extent medical professionals trust the use of self-assessment health apps and to what extent this would influence, as a subjective norm, the adoption of it by patients. To answer the research question, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 medical professionals from general practices and an online survey has been distributed among patients which lead to a sample size of N=90. The results indicated that generally medical professionals do trust the use of self-assessment health apps but that this trust is very likely to be influenced by their previous knowledge and experience regarding these apps. Furthermore, patients indicated to be quite willing to follow a health app advice by their GP and the medical professionals had rather mixed feelings if every patient would follow such advice. It was concluded that it is likely that the trust level of medical professionals, as a subjective norm, could be an influential factor on the patient’s willingness to adopt self-assessment health apps.