App-based services to overcome COVID-19: development, acceptance, and concerns in South Korea

Jihwan Park, Jinhyun Han, Yerin Kim, Mi Jung Rho
2021
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), South Korea has been engaged in various efforts to overcome the pandemic. One of them is to provide app-based COVID-19-related services. As the pandemic appears to be prolonged, a need for various apps has emerged. Thus, these COVID-19 apps support activities aimed at overcoming COVID-19. We aimed to determine which apps were the most necessary according to users and the current status of the development of COVID-19-related apps in
more » ... outh Korea. We also aimed to determine users' acceptance and concerns related to using apps to support activities to overcome COVID-19. We collected data from 1,148 users from an online survey between November 11 and December 6, 2020. Basic statistical analysis, multiple response analysis, and the Wilcoxon rank sum test were conducted using R. We manually classified the current status of the development of COVID-19-related apps. In total, 68.4% of the respondents showed high willingness to protect themselves from COVID-19 by using related apps. The epidemiological investigation app (62%) was marked as the most necessary app; the self-management app for self-isolation (54%), self-route management app (53%), COVID-19 symptom management app (42%), and mental health management app (24%), respectively, were deemed as the next most necessary. Despite the high intention to use, people were also concerned about privacy issues and media exposure. Those who had an underlying disease and had experience using COVID-19-related apps showed significantly higher intentions to use the related apps(P=.05 and P=.01). It is very important to target users to design and develop the most necessary apps. Furthermore, to gain the public's trust and make the apps available to as many people as possible, it is vital to develop diverse apps in which privacy is maximally protected.
doi:10.2196/29315 pmid:34137726 fatcat:kbgxg5rxvbfydnfygeufakexwq