Towards an Understanding of Post-Adoption Usage Behaviours in the Context of M-Health Pregnancy Support Applications

Mobile health applications are fast becoming an influential source of information for pregnant women. These technologies have been shown to help women monitor their progress during their pregnancy and personalise healthcare to suit their needs. Limited research has been directed towards understanding usage behaviours with these apps. Various authors have argued that there is a need to expand the scope of research from simple usage behaviour to deeper levels, as technology becomes more sophisticated and easily available. As such, this research explores post-adoption usage of mobile health pregnancy applications in the South African context based on Hsieh and Zmud's [1] post-adoption usage stages of acceptance, routinization and infusion. Open-ended semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve pregnant women. The findings revealed that pregnant women displayed post adoption routinization behaviours of routine use and IS continuance. With regards to infusion, the study found that pregnant women engaged in extended usage and deep usage. They did not engage in third stage behaviours, namely emergent use, feature extension or intention to explore. The research recognises m-health pregnancy support apps as important tools in the pregnancy journey. It highlights how pregnant women value these apps and view them as information sources and for reassurance during their pregnancy.