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Chinese Version of the mHealth App Usability Questionnaire for Health Care Providers: Cross-Sectional Translation and
Mengxia Chen1, Wenjun Gao2, Yijie Pan3
1Department of Nursing, the First Medical Center of Chinese People's Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, China.
Background:
With the rapid proliferation of mobile health (mHealth) apps in clinical practice, ensuring their usability for health care providers is critical to optimize workflow integration and service delivery. The mHealth App Usability Questionnaire (MAUQ) is a validated tool for assessing usability, but its applicability in Chinese health care settings remains untested. Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the MAUQ for interactive apps are essential to address this gap.
Objective:
This study aimed to translate the MAUQ (for interactive apps for health care providers) into Chinese (MAUQ-C), adapt it to the Chinese health care context, and validate its psychometric properties for future mHealth research and use in China.
Methods:
This cross-sectional study followed international guidelines for cross-cultural adaptation, including forward translation, backward translation, expert review, and pretesting. A convenience sample of 382 health care providers (eg, physicians and nurses) using mHealth apps was recruited from 2 hospitals in China. Reliability was evaluated using the Cronbach α, test-retest reliability, and split-half reliability. Validity was assessed through content validity index, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis.
Results:
The MAUQ-C retained the original 21-item structure and 3 dimensions. Content validity index values ranged from 0.833 to 1.000 (Scale-Content Validity Index/Average=0.992). Exploratory factor analysis identified a 3-factor model explaining 63.48% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a good model fit (minimum discrepancy/df=1.810; cumulative fit index=0.950; root-mean-square error of approximation=0.058). The Cronbach α for the total scale was 0.919, with dimension-specific values of 0.928, 0.877, and 0.886. Test-retest reliability was 0.881, and split-half reliability was 0.726. These results confirm that the MAUQ-C effectively measures usability across the dimensions of usability and satisfaction, system information arrangement, and efficiency.
Conclusions:
The MAUQ-C is a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating mHealth app usability among Chinese health care providers. It can serve as a critical tool to guide the development and optimization of mHealth solutions tailored to the Chinese health care system.