COVID-19–Related Disruptions and Increased mHealth Emergency Use Intention: Experience Sampling Method Study

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global public health event, which has raised concerns regarding individuals’ health. Individuals need to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic with guidelines on symptom recognition, home isolation, and maintain mental health. Besides routine use of mobile health (mHealth) such as accessing information to keep healthy, individuals can use mHealth services in situations requiring urgent medical care, which is defined as mHealth emergency use. It is not known whether individuals have increased their daily mHealth services emergency use as a result of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective The purpose of this diary analysis study is to assess the influences of daily disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals’ mHealth emergency use. The secondary purpose of this study is to explore the mediating role of COVID-19–induced strain and the moderating role of promotion regulatory focus in the relationship between daily disruptions of COVID-19 and mHealth emergency use. Drawing from the cognitive activation theory of stress, we investigated the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of the influence of COVID-19–related disruptions on daily mHealth emergency use. Methods To test the proposed model, this study adopts the experience sampling method to collect daily data. The experience sampling method helps researchers to capture participants’ fluctuations in emotions, mental engagement in an activity, and experienced stress. This study collected 550 cases nested in 110 samples in mainland China to test the conceptual model. In addition, we employed hierarchical linear modeling analysis to test the effect of COVID-19–related disruptions on mHealth emergency use. Results We found that COVID-19–related disruptions increased COVID-19–induced strain (γ=0.24, P<.001) and mHealth emergency use on a daily basis (γ=0.28, P<.001). COVID-19–induced daily strain mediated this relationship (effect=0.09, 95% CI 0.05-0.14). Promotion regulatory focus moderated the relationship between COVID-19–induced strain and mHealth emergency use (γ=0.35, P=.02). In addition, the indirect relationship between disruptions and mHealth emergency use intentions through COVID-19–induced strain is contingent upon promotion regulatory focus: this relationship was stronger in those with high promotion regulatory focus (effect=0.12, 95% CI 0.06-0.19) than in those with low promotion regulatory focus (effect=0.06, 95% CI 0.02-0.11). Conclusions Event disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic induced mHealth emergency use intention through increased psychological strain. Furthermore, individuals’ promotion regulatory focus amplified this indirect relationship. Our findings extend our understanding of the factors underlying mHealth emergency use intention and illustrate the potential contingent role of promotion regulatory focus in the cognitive activation theory of stress. This study also opens avenues for future research on mHealth emergency use intention in other countries and cultural settings.

Focus Prosody Varies by Phrase-Initial Tones in Seoul Korean: Production, Perception, and Automatic Classification

Production and perception experiments were conducted to examine whether focus prosody varies by phrase-initial tones in Seoul Korean. We also trained an automatic classifier to locate prosodic focus within a sentence. Overall, focus prosody in Seoul Korean was weak and confusing in production, and poorly identified in perception. However, Seoul Korean’s focus prosody differed between phrase-initial low and high tones. The low tone group induced a smaller pitch increase by focus than the high tone group. The low tone group was also subject to a greater degree of confusion, although both tone groups showed some degree of confusion spanning the entire phrase as a focus effect. The identification rate was, therefore, approximately half in the low tone group (23.5%) compared to the high tone group (40%). In machine classification, the high tone group was also more accurately identified (high: 86% vs. low: 68%) when trained separately, and the machine’s general performance when the two tone groups were trained together was much superior to the human’s (machine: 65% vs. human: 32%). Although the focus prosody in Seoul Korean was weak and confusing, the identification rate of focus was higher under certain circumstances, which avers that focus prosody can vary within a single language.

Highly Scattering Hierarchical Porous Polymer Microspheres with a High-Refractive Index Inorganic Surface for a Soft-Focus Effect

Functional light scattering materials have received considerable attention in various fields including cosmetics and optics. However, a conventional approach based on optically active inorganic materials requires considerable synthetic effort and complicated dispersion processes for special refractive materials. Here, we report a simple and effective fabrication strategy for highly scattering hierarchical porous polymer microspheres with a high-refractive index inorganic surface that mitigates the disadvantages of inorganic materials, producing organic-inorganic hybrid particles with an excellent soft-focus effect. Hierarchical organic-inorganic hybrid particles were synthesized using the simple physical mixing of porous poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) microparticles with different pore sizes and regularities as the organic core and titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles with different particle sizes as the inorganic shell. The polar noncovalent interactions between polar PMMA microspheres and the polar surface of TiO2 nanoparticles could induce the hierarchical core-shell structure of hybrid particles. The synthesized hybrid particles had increased diffuse reflectance properties of up to 160% compared with single inorganic particles. In addition, the light scattering efficiency and soft-focus effect could be increased further, depending on the size of the TiO2 nanoparticles and the pore characteristics of the PMMA microspheres. The proposed study can provide a facile and versatile way to improve the light scattering performance for potential cosmetics.

COVID-19–Related Disruptions and Increased mHealth Emergency Use Intention: Experience Sampling Method Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global public health event, which has raised concerns regarding individuals’ health. Individuals need to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic with guidelines on symptom recognition, home isolation, and maintain mental health. Besides routine use of mobile health (mHealth) such as accessing information to keep healthy, individuals can use mHealth services in situations requiring urgent medical care, which is defined as mHealth emergency use. It is not known whether individuals have increased their daily mHealth services emergency use as a result of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this diary analysis study is to assess the influences of daily disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals’ mHealth emergency use. The secondary purpose of this study is to explore the mediating role of COVID-19–induced strain and the moderating role of promotion regulatory focus in the relationship between daily disruptions of COVID-19 and mHealth emergency use. Drawing from the cognitive activation theory of stress, we investigated the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of the influence of COVID-19–related disruptions on daily mHealth emergency use. METHODS To test the proposed model, this study adopts the experience sampling method to collect daily data. The experience sampling method helps researchers to capture participants’ fluctuations in emotions, mental engagement in an activity, and experienced stress. This study collected 550 cases nested in 110 samples in mainland China to test the conceptual model. In addition, we employed hierarchical linear modeling analysis to test the effect of COVID-19–related disruptions on mHealth emergency use. RESULTS We found that COVID-19–related disruptions increased COVID-19–induced strain (γ=0.24, <i>P</i>&lt;.001) and mHealth emergency use on a daily basis (γ=0.28, <i>P</i>&lt;.001). COVID-19–induced daily strain mediated this relationship (effect=0.09, 95% CI 0.05-0.14). Promotion regulatory focus moderated the relationship between COVID-19–induced strain and mHealth emergency use (γ=0.35, <i>P</i>=.02). In addition, the indirect relationship between disruptions and mHealth emergency use intentions through COVID-19–induced strain is contingent upon promotion regulatory focus: this relationship was stronger in those with high promotion regulatory focus (effect=0.12, 95% CI 0.06-0.19) than in those with low promotion regulatory focus (effect=0.06, 95% CI 0.02-0.11). CONCLUSIONS Event disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic induced mHealth emergency use intention through increased psychological strain. Furthermore, individuals’ promotion regulatory focus amplified this indirect relationship. Our findings extend our understanding of the factors underlying mHealth emergency use intention and illustrate the potential contingent role of promotion regulatory focus in the cognitive activation theory of stress. This study also opens avenues for future research on mHealth emergency use intention in other countries and cultural settings.