BACKGROUND
Background: Electronic health (eHealth) offers majority opportunities in supporting health care, and has received a great deal of attention in the domain of health-related studies. Yet, only a fraction of these studies focuses on what kinds of variables explain the adoption of eHealth among maternal, making their subjective evaluation an underestimated field. This research will address this gap by investigating the acceptance of mobile health services from maternal point of view.
OBJECTIVE
Objective: The aim of this study was to explore what factors influence maternal intentions to use a mobile health application (App) service based on the Venkatesh’s unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2).
METHODS
Methods: Participants were recruited from October 2020 to March 2021 in the obstetrics and gynecology department of 2 hospitals in Shenzhen. The variables included sociodemographic variables and the mHealth adoption gradient. To explore determinants of intention to use mHealth apps, a new measure based on the UTAUT2 was adapted with 4 key determinants (perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social influence, and perceived risk) and extended by electronic health literacy (e-HEALS) and Individual innovation and creativity (IC). To test this model, we applied partial least squares (PLS) path modeling with AMOS software. A total of 323 valid questionnaires were analyzed.
RESULTS
Results: The suggested eHealth adoption model yielded a high model fit. We found that e-HEALS and IC were significant predictors of usage intention (UI). The moderation analysis revealed that perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived usefulness (PU), social influence (SI) and perceived risk (PR) were all significantly affected both e-HEALS and IC. The study also confirmed the positive relationship between e-HEALS and IC.
CONCLUSIONS
Conclusions: This study developed a theoretical model to predict pregnant or postpartum women’s acceptance of mHealth technology for health management. Important factors that contribute to the usage of a mHealth App were identified. The findings of our study are important for creators of mHealth Apps because they can help tailor mHealth Apps to the mothers’ needs and characteristics. Also, this study provides important insights about the variables that affect the acceptance of Apps for other researchers.