Promoting Mobile Health Adoption to Hospital Patients Through Social Influencers

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) plays a key role in improving healthcare interventions by engaging patients in healthcare management. Still, there is a paucity of empirical studies on the extent to which mHealth adoption could be effectively promoted via social influencers (clinicians, caretakers or other patients) who have shown to significantly influence health-related behaviors of patients. A multi-group analysis of 253 hospital patients revealed that while social influencers have a strong influence on mHealth adoption, the effect only exists among patients who have high hospital usage. Even so, the positive relationship between technology-related factors including perceived quality of mHealth interventions and opinion on mHealth, patients’ personal motivation to adoption, and patients’ adoption intention is not affected by their hospital usage frequency. Insights on forward-looking recommendations and practical implications on mHealth promotion are highlighted.