Adoption of Mobile Health Applications for Diabetes Management From a Push–Pull–Mooring Perspective

Diabetes management applications enable diabetes self-management in a more convenient and cost-effective manner. This study develops a push–pull–mooring model in order to understand patient-switching intentions to the conventional offline and the novel mobile diabetes management. Data collected from 412 adult patients with diabetes in China are analyzed to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that push effects and pull effects have significantly positive effects on switching intention. Mooring effects negatively affect switching behavior. Meanwhile, the moderating effects of all three mooring factors (switching cost, offline habit, and private risk) on the relationship between both push-switching intentions and pull-switching intentions are also detected. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of patient switching intentions towards diabetes management applications and, accordingly, can help marketers, healthcare providers, and health policymakers develop and appropriate their future marketing and administrative strategies.