E-HTAM: A Technology Acceptance Model for electronic health

Abstract

Serving citizens through an integrated e-Health system requires an understanding of the behaviour of the population as well as the factors that influence their acceptance and usage of technology, such as technology design and sociocultural factors. This has been called e-Health acceptance. The research reported in this paper employed the well established Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to empirically assess the validity of its constructs, namely 'perceived usefulness', 'perceived ease of use' and 'intention to use e-Health services'. Other sociocultural factors affecting e Health acceptance, such as 'trust', 'subjective norms' and 'tangibility' have also been investigated. The proposed e-Health Technology Acceptance Model (e-HTAM) assessed the influence of 'perceived usefulness', 'perceived ease of use' as independent variables on 'intention to use e-Health services' as dependent variable; the correlation found to be positive between the three constructs, which indicate that TAM is suitable to evaluate e-Health services acceptance. Other sociocultural factors such as 'tangibility', 'trust', 'masculinity', 'uncertainty avoidance', and 'power distance' also showed significant positive Correlations with the reported 'intention to use e-Health services'.