Understanding Users’ Continuance Usage Behavior Towards Digital Health Information System Driven by the Digital Revolution Under COVID-19 Context: An Extended UTAUT Model

Abstract

Background

Improving the health status of users through the use of digital health information systems has drawn the attention of practitioners and academics under the tide of the digital revolution, specifically in the time of global pandemic of COVID-19, and as a result, online medical consultation has developed rapidly.

Purpose

Empirical studies, however, are lacking in terms of gaining insight into use digital health information system driven by the digital revolution under COVID-19 and identifying the factors for retaining users and encouraging their continuing use. To solve this problem, this study seeks to explore the factors that influence users’ intention to use digital health information system.

Methods

This study extended the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model by introducing components of perceived risks into the model. Structural equation modeling was adopted to evaluate the research model based on an empirical survey of 241 users in China.

Results

As indicated by the results, users’ continuance usage behavior to digital health information system is shaped by intention to use and facilitating conditions, with effort expectancy, social influence, perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment exerting indirect positive effects on continuance usage behavior via intention to use. In contrast, perceived risk and perceived cost have indirect negative impact on continuance usage behavior.

Conclusion

The findings of this study can not only help the practitioners better understand the users’ continuance usage behavior towards digital health information system driven by digital revolution in the time of COVID-19 pandemic and further tap into the potential market but also make up the short of traditional technology acceptance model explanatory by the extended UTAUT model.

Keywords:

• digital health information system
• online medical
• continuance usage behavior
• UTAUT model

Data Sharing Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to restrictions of privacy.

Ethical Statement

This paper did not involve human clinical trials or animal experiments. Our study was carried out through questionnaire. Meanwhile, the questionnaire did not involve any sensitive topics that may make the participants feel uncomfortable. The questionnaire is anonymous and the interviewees are random. The information of all interviewees is protected. Based on the above reasons, the study is deemed to meet the institutional requirements and is therefore exempt from ethical recognition. All interviewees were informed of the research process and provided written informed consent in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration. The above investigation process has been approved by the Institutional Review Committee of the Business School, Jiangsu Normal University. The participants under 18 years of age were approved by the Institutional Review Committee of the Business School in Jiangsu Normal University to provide informed consent on their own behalf.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, which have helped us to improve the manuscript.

Disclosure

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

“This research was funded by The National Social Science Fund of China, grant number 21BGL042 and the Philosophy and Social Science Research in Jiangsu Province of China, grant number 2021SJA1030”.