Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Hezha M.Tareq Abdulhadi ¹
• Muhammed Hussein Ali ²
• Hardi Sabah Talabani ³

¹ National Institute of Technology(NIT)/ IT Department

² Computer Engineering Technique, Mazaya University College, Nasiriyah, Iraq

³ Computer Science Department, Faculty of Science, Charmo University, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Abstract

Through and after the period of quarantine of the COVID-19 epidemic, The Mobile Applications developed for different purposes and goals such as contacts and patients tracing, digital services, monitoring and testing, epidemiological research, and quarantine compliance. The main aim of this study is to highlight the effect of mobile pandemic applications in Iraqi society and the trustworthiness in developer and distributor of apps. To this end, we explored differences in attitudes of smartphone users towards pandemic apps and sharing the data in order to conduct research. The method adopted to conduct the survey in this study its Email and telephone based survey of (318) participants adults over 18 years old in Iraq, A total of (315) could be used for statistical analysis. This 9-item survey examined current use of epidemic applications, motivations for using or not using them, trust in app distributors, data handling (storing and transmitting data), willingness to share coded data with researchers using a pandemic app, attitudes toward app use among people, demographics, and personal characteristics. The results of this study showed that most participants stated they were using smartphones (307/315, 97.5) but only (77/307, 24.4) are using pandemic apps in their smartphone. Intriguingly, in this survey when participants asked for the preferable organizations for storing data and application division, trust in governmental (federal or state government, regional health office), public-appointed (statutory health insurance), or government-funded organizations (research institutes) was much higher than in private organizations (private research institutions, clinics, health insurances, information technology companies).

Keywords

• Mobile Apps
• Covid-19 Pandemic
• Smartphone
• Iraq
• Health Insurances

Main Subjects

• Information technology