Effective use of mobile phone application for supporting health care

Abstract

This research aims to apply innovative technology to support the health of Thai people. In the present day, technology has become a part of our daily lives in the form of devices such as computers, smartphones and other gadgets. Innovative technologies allow people to make their lives easier. The technologies have been rapidly adopted and applied with a wide variety of both hard and soft skills. The purpose of this research is to study the effective use of mobile phones to support user health. A prototype of a mobile application to promote Thai people’s health was developed. It consists of three main parts: a) to promote healthy food consumption for individuals, b) to support appropriate work outs for individuals, and c) to aid people to quit smoking. The control group of participants was trained to use the prototype application whilst the experimental group learned to use the prototype by themselves. The participants selected for the experiment differ in gender and age, have different education and job backgrounds and also unequal monthly earnings. 33.82% of trained users could use the application and achieve the objectives of parts 1 and 2. For part 3, there were a total of 19 participants in the group who were smokers, 15% of them were able to use the application successfully and achieve the objectives. We compared the effectiveness of the participants who were and were not trained in how to use the application. Moreover, we used a questionnaire to collect data and feedback on the use of the application in order to support the outcome of the three main parts.  The questionnaire was selectively distributed and there were 12 respondents.  In order to gain insights into the participants’ use of the application, open and closed questions were employed in the questionnaire. The questions covered the subjects of Usability, Availability, Reliability, Accessibility, and Performance.  The results revealed that the participants had positive attitudes towards the use of this mobile application. They agreed that the application encouraged and motivated them to improve their health. A number of other possible approaches for further investigation have been identified. In this paper, we also provide the research outcomes and what needs to be done to improve the approach in order for it to be more beneficial. We intend to extend the prototype to cover all activities in daily life. Using sophisticated visualization techniques will help to make the application work more efficiently as well.