Effective Factors in Adoption of Mobile Health Applications between Medical Sciences Students Using the UTAUT Model

Abstract

Abstract Background Students with complex health care services process face constant challenges with regard to health education. The mobile devices are an important tool that can install various applications for using information such as clinical guidelines, drug resources, clinical calculations, and the latest scientific evidence without any time and place limitations. And this happens only when students accept and use it. Objective The purpose of this article is to identify the factors influencing students in their intention to use mobile health (mHealth) by using Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. Methods A standard questionnaire was used to collect the data from nearly 302 Lorestan University of medical science students including nutrition and public health, paramedicine, nursing and midwifery, pharmacy, dentistry, and medical schools. The data were processed using LISREL (Scientific Software International, Inc., Lincolnwood, Illinois) and SPSS (IBM Corp., Armonk, New York) softwares and the statistical analysis technique was based on structural equation modeling (SEM). Result A total of 300 questionnaires including valid responses were used in this study. The results showed that mediator of age did not affect the predictors of intention to use mHealth, and the level of education and gender directly affected the intention to use. In addition, effort expectancy, facilitating condition, and behavioral intention directly and indirectly have effect on use, whereas the result revealed no significant relationship between two important processes of performance expectancy and social influence with students' behavioral intention to use the mHealth. Conclusions The present study provides valuable information on mobile health acceptance factors for widespread use of this device among students of universities of medical sciences as a base infrastructure for a variety of information about health services and learning. Review and comparison of results with other studies showed that mHealth acceptance factors were different from other end users (elderly, patients, and health professionals).