The difference between motivation and volition matters! A qualitative study on mobile health application adoption

Designing technologies that users are interested in, use and continue to use has long been a challenge. In the health sector, the issue of technology adoption is even more critical, as the potential insistence of technologies can lead to patients refusing to try them out at all. Developers and researchers need to consider this issue when designing and evaluating new health technologies and at the various stages of the users’ journey. We conducted expert interviews with physicians to determine what their older patients may need to try out mobile health applications and integrate them into their daily routines. We want to understand how social-cognitive behavioural processes are structured from a health psychology perspective and which factors influence the motivation and volition of seniors. Our findings illustrate the importance of considering the acceptance of technology as a staged process with adapted measurement methods for each stage.