Mobile health (mhealth): facilitators and barriers of the intention of use in patients with chronic illnesses

ABSTRACT

Background: Although the potential of mobile health (mHealth) is extraordinary the implementation is still very scarce. As patients have many sources of information, investing in mHealth requires a previous knowledge of mHealth preference. The purpose of this study is to analyse preference and intention of using mobile health services by patients with chronic diseases.

Method: We have designed a structural equation model to examine how motivations (digital information, social network, improving of manual records), perceived risks (effort, inadequate privacy, inadequate information) and social influence affect the preference and the intention of using mHealth. An exploratory online survey of 181 patients was carried out to test the proposed model.

Results: Variables such as digital information, perceived effort and social influence increase the intention of using mHealth. On the other hand, inadequate information acts as a barrier that restrains the intention of using mHealth. These results contribute to drawing attention to the peculiarities that transferring mobile communication technologies to the field of healthcare may entail. Although participants in this exploratory study only included patients with haemophilia, the results may have implications for other types of chronic disease settings that require dealing with great amounts of information.

Conclusions: This study provides implications for designers of mHealth, health care professionals and policy-makers in order to enhance the use of mHealth. The findings of this research challenge the notion that privacy concerns are an obstacle for using mHealth. An excessive simplicity of mHealth may send out a message of mistrust.

KEYWORDS:

• Information technology
• mobile health services
• mhealth behavior intention
• mhealth preference
• chronic disease

Acknowledgements

The authors would also like to thank the editor of the journal Haemophilia for giving them the opportunity of introducing an initial stage of this research to the haemophilia community through a letter to the editor.

The authors wish to thank the Spanish Federation of Haemophilia and the Spanish Society of Haemostasis and Thrombosis for their collaboration in the collection of data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Ana Belén del Río-Lanza is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Oviedo, Spain. She has published papers on issues concerning patient communication, and patients’ perception of shared decision-making. She is a member of the Spanish Federation of Hemophilia since 2005 .

Ana Suárez-Vázquez is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Oviedo, Spain. Her primarily research interests are in the areas of service quality, psychological effects of social networks, and patient empowerment.

Leticia Suárez-Álvarez is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Oviedo, Spain. Her research topics includes word-of-mouth communication and the co-creation of value. These topics are becoming popular and are beginning to have applications in healthcare service.

Víctor Iglesias-Argüelles is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Oviedo, Spain. He has published on topics such as consumer behavior in services, marketing of services and structural equation models. He served as Editor of Revista Española Investigación de Marketing-ESIC and as a member of the Board of Directores of Asociación Española de Marketing Académico y Profesional (AEMARK).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the 2016–2019 call for R&D projects (ECO2016-76783-00). Secretaría de Estado de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación.