The Perception of Laymen and Experts Toward Mobile Applications for Self-monitoring of Diet Based on in-depth Interviews and Focus Group Interviews

Jeong Sun Ahn; Sihan Song; Sang-Eun Moon; Sejin Kim; Jung Eun Lee

doi:10.5720/kjcn.2018.23.3.202

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Ahn, Song, Moon, Kim, and Lee: The Perception of Laymen and Experts Toward Mobile Applications for Self-monitoring of Diet Based on in-depth Interviews and Focus Group Interviews

Research Article

Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 2018; 23(3): 202-215.

Published online: 30 June 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2018.23.3.202

The Perception of Laymen and Experts Toward Mobile Applications for Self-monitoring of Diet Based on in-depth Interviews and Focus Group Interviews

Jeong Sun Ahn¹, Sihan Song¹, Sang-Eun Moon¹, Sejin Kim¹, Jung Eun Lee^1,²

¹Department of Food and Nutrition, College of Human Ecology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

²Research Institute of Human Ecology, College of Human Ecology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Jung Eun Lee. Department of Food and Nutrition, 1, Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Tel: (02) 880-6834, Fax: (02) 884-0305, jungelee@snu.ac.kr

Received 17 May 2018 Revised 18 June 2018 Accepted 18 June 2018

The Korean Society of Community Nutrition

(open-access):

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

We conducted a qualitative study to explore the feasibility of mobile applications for self-monitoring of diet.

Methods

We conducted in-depth and focus group interviews with eight laymen who had used mobile dietary applications and eight experts. Interviews were audio-recorded and analyzed using an open coding method.

Results

The qualitative data of our study revealed two key themes: (1) perceptions, opinions and attitudes towards mobile applications of self-monitoring of diet and (2) future directions to improve mobile applications.

Conclusions

Our qualitative study suggested the potential use of mobile applications as a food-tracking and dietary monitoring tool and the need for improved mobile applications for self-monitoring of diet. The results of our study may provide insights into how to technically improve mobile applications for self-monitoring of diet, how to utilize dietary data generated through mobile applications, and how to improve individual's health though mobile applications.

Keywords: mobile application, self-monitoring of diet, in-depth interview, focus group interview

Figures and Tables

Table 1

The interview question list for laymen

Table 2

The Interview question list for experts

Table 3

General Characteristics of the study participants

1) Information and Communications Technologies

Table 4

Theme and Sub-theme of results

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the MSIT (Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the ITRC(Information Technology Research Center) support program (IITP-2018-2014-1-00720) supervised by the IITP (Institute for Information & communications Technology Promotion).

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ORCID iDs: Jung Eun Lee
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1141-878X
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