The Integrated Model of Wearable Activity Tracker Use: Exploring Health Beliefs and Obesity Information Seeking Behaviors from a Nationally Representative Sample (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Previous related studies mainly focus on the development and implementation of healthcare wearable technology, while theoretical research about adoption and actual usage of wearable activity tracker is relatively sparse. Technology acceptance model has been an only theoretical frame that dominantly explained the adoption of new health technology. OBJECTIVE This study aims to explore factors affecting wearable activity tracking device adoption and usage among both obese adults and healthy consumers from perspectives of individual health beliefs (perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, and self-efficacy) and information seeking behaviors. METHODS Our Integrated Model of Wearable Activity Tracker Use (IMWAT) and proposed hypotheses were validated and tested with data collected from a population representative telephone survey (N=2006). The data was analyzed using a variety of statistical techniques including Structural Equation Modeling using R. RESULTS Our results show that perceived benefits of physical activity, perceived susceptibility and self-efficacy toward obesity are significant predictors of information seeking behavior that mediates their effects on the use of wearable activity trackers, while obesity severity perceptions directly promote the wearable device usage. CONCLUSIONS The current study offers a theoretical contribution to the extension of the HBM and information seeking literature, while also providing practical recommendations for health technology developers and communicators of public obesity prevention campaigns.