JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

With the increasingly rapid development of Web 2.0 technologies, the application of mobile healthcare in the field of health management has become popular. Accordingly, patients are able to access consulting services and effective health information online without temporal and geographical constraints.

Objective:

In this study, we drew on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to investigate patients' continuous usage intention on mHealth services. In addition, we further examined which route (the central route or the peripheral route) has a stronger impact on a patient's usage of health management care.

Methods:

To meet these objectives, five hypotheses thus developed were empirically validated using a field survey to test the direct and indirect effects (via attitude) of the two routes on a continuous usage intention.

Results:

we found that patients perceived mHealth information quality and perceived mHealth system quality have a positive effect on their personal attitudes. Besides, the results reveal that social media influence had a positive effect on a patient’s attitude towards mHealth services. In particular, our findings suggest that a patient's health consciousness has a positive effect on the relationship between social media influence and attitude.

Conclusions:

This study contributes to the mHealth service literature by introducing the ELM as a referent theory for research, as well as by specifying the moderating role of health consciousness. For practitioners, this study introduces influence processes as policy tools that managers can employ to motivate the diffusion of mHealth services within their organizations.