BACKGROUND
Service characteristic factors are verified as the determinants for influencing people’s use intention of mHealth. Exploration of the interactions among the service characteristics of users can play an important role in improving service adoption rate. mHealth service appears to be an emerging new technology that presents a new pattern of healthcare service; however, users have concerns that their personal information might be disclosed and used without permission. This concern hinders people’s adoption behavior of mHealth services.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study is to explore how service characteristics (service relevance and service accuracy) interact to influence individuals’ use intention of mHealth services. This study also investigates the moderating roles of innovativeness and privacy concern.
METHODS
To meet these objectives, six hypotheses thus developed were empirically validated using a survey to test the effects of service characteristics and personal traits on use intention of mHealth.
RESULTS
We confirm that service relevance and service accuracy positively and directly influence individuals’ use intention of mHealth services. In addition, innovativeness positively affects the relationship between service relevance and use intention. Privacy concern negatively influences the relationship between service relevance and use intention, but positively influences the relationship between service accuracy and use intention.
CONCLUSIONS
The present study provides new insights into the influencing factors of individuals’ usage behaviour toward mHealth services. Such insight could provide further understanding of how individuals adopt new information service or technologies, which contribute to both information system and health care research areas in a very promising way.