Affiliations:
Faculty of Management Information Systems, Ho Chi Minh University of Banking, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
With the rapid pace of digital transformation, mobile health (mHealth) applications have become an important tool in the healthcare sector. This study aims to improve the theoretical understanding of Vietnamese consumers’ intention to use mHealth applications and to provide practical guidance for service providers in the design, implementation, and management of these systems. A conceptual research framework was developed by integrating the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) model with the Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT), while also considering key characteristics of mobile technology. Survey data were collected from 256 Vietnamese mobile phone users and analyzed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) method. The results show that the continued use of mHealth applications is mainly driven by intrinsic psychological rewards, particularly playfulness and enjoyment, which have a stronger influence on future usage intention than utilitarian benefits. This finding suggests that users’ feelings of fun and pleasure play a more important role in sustaining long-term engagement than functional efficiency alone. In terms of technological features, responsiveness was identified as the most important factor, as it enhances both enjoyment and gratification, while observability promotes playfulness. Interestingly, the study also found a negative relationship between personalization and gratification. Overall, the findings highlight the stronger role of hedonic factors compared to utilitarian factors in predicting continuance intention. The study also provides a validated framework indicating that responsiveness and observability are key features for encouraging sustained use, while suggesting that developers should be cautious when implementing strong or generalized personalization features in health technologies.
Mobile health applications, Continuance intention, Hedonic motivation, Technology responsiveness, Vietnamese users
https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2026.03.012
Trinh, N. H. (2026). Determinants of continued mHealth usage in Vietnam: An integrated S-O-R and UGT approach. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 13(3), 115–129. https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2026.03.012