An empirical study on university students' continuous utilization of fitness apps in China

University students in China faced great health challenges. Fitness apps based on smartphones have the potential to provide an innovative approach to the university students to increase physical activities and conduct health management. This study examined how confirmed usefulness and confirmed ease of use of fitness Apps affect the attitudes, intention of recommendation, and continuous use of fitness apps among Chinese university students. The study took a quantitative approach, using online questionnaire to collect data from 552 university students who had experiences using fitness Apps. All data analyses were conducted in R. Pearson’s correlation and multiple linear regression were used to examine associations. Both confirmed usefulness and confirmed ease of use were positively associated with attitude towards fitness Apps and intention of recommending fitness apps to others. However, only confirmed usefulness was positively related to frequency of using fitness apps. Confirmed ease of use was not significantly related to frequency of using fitness apps. We recommend future app-based health interventions targeting on university students to pay more attention to the functionality of the apps and integrate professional instructions into the program designs to help users achieve their goal more effectively.