Fear appeal, coping appeal and mobile health technology persuasion: a two-stage scenario-based survey of the elderly

Abstract

PurposePrior researches on the adoption of mobile health services (MHS) concentrate on the subjective cognitive appraisals resulting in technology adoption, while ignoring how to shape those cognitive appraisals by the objective message design strategies which are easier to operate in practice. Based on protection motivation theory (PMT), the current research aims to explore the antecedents of cognitive appraisals by focusing on message design strategies of fear appeal and coping appeal.Design/methodology/approachA two-stage scenario-based survey of 204 participants was conducted to collect data. The authors chose SPSS and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) approach with the software LISREL 8.8 to test our model.FindingsThe results show that the relationship between fear appeal and fear arousal is inverted U-shaped such that the degree of fear arousal is the greatest when the fear appeal is at a moderate level. Perceived usefulness for the message with negative framing is higher than that with positive framing. Furthermore, fear appeal and coping appeal have a significant interaction on the adoption of MHS at different stages.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample data of this study come from a special health service of a special group in China, which limits the universality of our research results for other groups or health care services. Therefore, future researchers can validate the model in other research scenarios and sample populations.Originality/valueThis study shows how fear appeal and coping appeal work together to influence individuals' adoption intention. The authors’ findings expand the theoretical depth of PMT and fear theory, enriching the theoretical connotation of framing effect in mobile health technology adoption context, which add new insights to design more persuasive messages through fear appeal and coping appeal for researchers and MHS providers in mobile health communication or propaganda.

Exploring the adoption decisions of mobile health service users: a behavioral reasoning theory perspective

“…protective motivation theory (PMT) and the health belief model (HBM)) to understand users' MHS adoption behaviors (e.g. Sun et al. , 2023; Guo et al ., 2015) since the adoption of MHSs is a personal health protection behavior.…”

“…With the development of mobile and leading-edge information technologies (e.g. cloud computing), mobile health services (MHSs) have become a new paradigm for users (consumers) to conduct self-care management anytime and anywhere to enhance quality healthcare (Gao et al ., 2015; Sun et al. , 2023; Li et al ., 2022).…”

“…With the development of mobile and leading-edge information technologies (e.g. cloud computing), mobile health services (MHSs) have become a new paradigm for users (consumers) to conduct self-care management anytime and anywhere to enhance quality healthcare (Gao et al, 2015;Sun et al, 2023;Li et al, 2022). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), MHSs are defined as "medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants, and other wireless devices" (Nisha et al, 2019).…”

“…Through reciprocal cooperation between healthcare service institutions (e.g. hospitals, pharmacies, rehabilitation institutions) and information technology service providers, MHSs can provide consumer with various application scenarios such as online medical treatment, drug purchasing, emergency treatment, vaccine appointments and health management, for example, through location tracking, chronic disease monitoring and vital sign monitoring (Triantafyllidis et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2023). MHSs have been effectively proven to reduce medical costs, optimize the allocation of medical resources and improve the medical care and the efficiency of medical treatment (Hasan et al, 2022).…”

“…The assessment of health threats is an important reason for individuals to use MHSs. Personal use of MHSs is often due to perceived health threats or perceived disease occurrence (Gao et al, 2015;Sun et al, 2023). Therefore, this study integrates the BRT and PMT as the theoretical basis to develop a research model and corresponding hypotheses in reconnoitering and inspecting user adoption behavior regarding MHSs.…”