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Abstract
BackgroundA variety of eHealth services are available and commonly used by the general public. eHealth has the potential to engage and empower people with managing their health. The prerequisite is, however, that eHealth services are adapted to the sociocultural heterogeneity of the user base and are available in a language and with contents that fit the users’ preference, skills, and abilities. Pakistani immigrants in the Oslo area, Norway, have a much higher risk of Type-2 diabetes (T2D) than their Norwegian counterparts do. In spite of having access to information and communication technology (ICT) and the Internet, ICT skills in this population are reported to be relatively low. Further, there is insufficient information about their use of and attitudes toward eHealth services, necessitating investigation of this group in particular.ObjectiveThis study targets first-generation immigrants from Pakistan living in the Oslo area and examines their use of and attitudes toward eHealth services, specifically: information searches, communication using ICT, and use of ICT for self-management or decision making, all concerning T2D.MethodsDue to a high prevalence of low literacy among the target population, we employed questionnaire-based individual interviews. The questionnaire was developed by implementing potentially relevant theoretical constructs (technology acceptance model (TAM) and health belief model (HBM)) as measures. To explore issues around language, culture, and general ICT skills, we also implemented questions that we assume were particularly relevant in the context studied but do not appear in any theoretical frameworks. The questionnaire was revised to reflect results of a pilot study involving 10 participants. We employed culturally sensitive sampling methods to reach informants who could otherwise fail to be included in the survey.ResultsThis paper presents a survey protocol. The data collection is ongoing. The aim is to collect 200 responses in total by March 2016.ConclusionsFor eHealth to become an influential social innovation, equal access to eHealth services regardless of users’ language, culture, and ICT skills is a prerequisite. Results from this study will be of importance for understanding how people who may not maximally benefit from eHealth services today could be targeted in the future.
Highlights
In light of the rapidly increasing number of people having access to Internet and mobile-broadband subscriptions [1], eHealth has a great potential to be a platform for social innovation that mitigates social disparity. eHealth is defined as “all kinds of information and communication technology used for supporting health care and promoting a sense of well-being” [2]
The survey report identified that the barriers to strengthening information and communication technology (ICT) skills were mostly related to knowledge about ICT and lack of available courses, while access to ICT devices or the Internet was little mentioned by the survey participants. These results suggest that many individuals among immigrants with a Pakistani background may not have been able to benefit from using eHealth services, despite having ICT devices and access to the Internet
The studies using technology acceptance model (TAM) to analyze acceptance of eHealth typically attempt to extend TAM to find out antecedent factors of behavioral intention (BI), perceived ease of use (PEOU), and perceived usefulness (PU) or combine with other models
Summary
Use of eHealth as a Common PracticeIn light of the rapidly increasing number of people having access to Internet and mobile-broadband subscriptions [1], eHealth has a great potential to be a platform for social innovation that mitigates social disparity. eHealth is defined as “all kinds of information and communication technology used for supporting health care and promoting a sense of well-being” [2]. Studies have shown that using the Internet to seek information relevant to health care and wellness is a widespread practice [3,4,5,6,7]. In 2015, 62% of the Norwegian population (16- to 79-years old) had sought the Internet for health-related information during the last 3 months [6]. In spite of having access to information and communication technology (ICT) and the Internet, ICT skills in this population are reported to be relatively low. Objective: This study targets first-generation immigrants from Pakistan living in the Oslo area and examines their use of and attitudes toward eHealth services, : information searches, communication using ICT, and use of ICT for self-management or decision making, all concerning T2D. Results from this study will be of importance for understanding how people who may not maximally benefit from eHealth services today could be targeted in the future
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