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Previously submitted to: JMIR mHealth and uHealth (no longer under consideration since Apr 02, 2021)

Date Submitted: Oct 13, 2020

Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.

Middle-aged and Elderly Users’ Sustainable Usage Intention of Health Maintenance-oriented WeChat Official Accounts: Empirical Study Based on a Hybrid Model in China

  • Lin Xu; 
  • Cheng Huang; 
  • Pengfei Li; 
  • Tingting Tang

ABSTRACT

Background:

Health maintenance-oriented WeChat official accounts, an important channel for obtaining health information, have attracted considerable attention from the social science community. However, studies on middle-aged and elderly users'sustainable usage intention of health maintenance-oriented WeChat official accounts are lacking. Increasing the sustainable usage intention of such accounts can strengthen public health education.

Objective:

Develop a theoretical model and explore influence factors of middle-aged and elderly users’ sustainable usage intention of health maintenance-oriented WeChat official accounts.

Methods:

A hybrid theoretical model was established on the basis of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2, health belief model, protection motivation theory, and health literacy. IBM SPSS version 24.0 was used to description statistic. IBM SPSS AMOS version 21.0 was used to construct and verify the research model. Three hundred ninety-six valid responses were collected by means of online and offline surveys.

Results:

Performance expectancy (ß=0.383, p<0.001), hedonic motivation (ß=0.502, p<0.001), social influence (ß=0.134, p=0.049), and threat appraisal (ß=0.136, p<0.001) positively influence the sustainable usage intention. Perceived health threat (ß=-0.065, p=0.053) don't has an significant effect on middle-aged and elderly users’ sustainable usage intention of official health maintenance-oriented WeChat accounts. Both threat appraisal (ß=0.579, p<0.001) and health literacy (ß=0.579, p<0.001) positively affect performance expectancy. Threat appraisal indirectly affects sustainable usage intention through performance expectancy mediation.

Conclusions:

This study focused on middle-aged and elderly users and explored determinants of their sustainable usage intention of official health maintenance-oriented WeChat accounts. Performance expectancy, threat appraisal, social influence, and hedonic motivation are positive determinants. In addition, performance expectancy plays a mediation role between threat appraisal and continued use intention.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Xu L, Huang C, Li P, Tang T

Middle-aged and Elderly Users’ Sustainable Usage Intention of Health Maintenance-oriented WeChat Official Accounts: Empirical Study Based on a Hybrid Model in China

JMIR Preprints. 13/10/2020:24979

DOI: 10.2196/preprints.24979

URL: https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/24979

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