Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Apr 20, 2023
Date Accepted: Nov 27, 2023
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
An app a day keeps the doctor away - How physicians and their patients adopt mobile health apps: A qualitative explorative study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The German ‘Act for the Improvement of Care through Digitization and Innovation’ enables physicians to prescribe digital health apps named DIGA to their patients, just like the prescription of medications. Physicians now have an obligation to inform themselves about what applications qualify for being prescribed and if they can help their patients. At the same time, patients must comply with the prescription, just as they take the pills prescribed by the physician. This means they need to adopt, familiarise and continuously use the DIGA. This is a significant change in Germany’s medical system and may pose a serious challenge, especially to older generations if they are not technology savvy.
Objective:
We aim to investigate how physicians behave with this new form of prescribing and whether patients are willing to comply.
Methods:
We developed a qualitative explorative study design to answer the research questions and conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 physicians and 30 patients.
Results:
We identified several factors influencing the adoption of DiGAs, which led to a new understanding of adoption research concerning digital health technologies. We found a considerable lack of information exists for physicians or patients, resulting in poor trust and digital competence.
Conclusions:
Our study provides deep insights into the needs and circumstantial evidence that enables a better understanding of physicians' and patients' perspectives and preferences for adopting DiGAs.
Citation
