Abstract—In Saudi Arabia’s rapidly growing mobile health (mHealth) sector, understanding user preferences, privacy concerns, and engagement is vital for creating user-friendly health technologies. This study explores user attitudes toward mobile health applications by addressing three key questions: What are users’ main privacy concerns? How do demographics affect preferences and usage? What security and access methods do users prefer? The study involved three phases: designing a detailed survey, gathering responses from 357 users across Saudi Arabia, and analyzing the data using statistical tools. The survey covered demographics, privacy concerns, app permissions, preferred access methods, and data security. Results showed that privacy is a top priority, with most users hesitant to share sensitive health data with third parties. Users preferred sharing basic demographic information over sensitive data, such as location. Strong security measures like multi-factor authentication and data encryption were widely favored. Demographic factors, especially age and education, influenced these preferences, while gender had little impact. The study emphasizes the need for secure, transparent, and user-centered mHealth app designs. It provides valuable insights for developers and policymakers to build trust and enhance user experience in Saudi Arabia’s mHealth landscape.
 
Keywords—mobile health apps, user perceptions, privacy, security, Saudi Arabia, data encryption, multi-factor authentication, health technology


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