Understanding the Acceptance of Mobile Health Services: a Comparison and Integration of Alternative Models

The advancement of mobile technology and the increasing importance of health promote the boom in mobile health services (MHS) around the world. Although there have been several studies investigating the health technology acceptance behavior from a variety of theoretical perspectives, they have not provided a unified understanding. To fill this research gap, this paper: (1) reviews the health technology acceptance literature and discusses three prominent models (e.g., the technology acceptance model, the theory of planned behavior or the unified theory of use and acceptance of technology, and the protection motivation theory), (2) empirically compares the three models, and (3) formulates and empirically validates the unified model in the context of mobile health services. In the unified model of health technology acceptance, we propose that users’ intention to use mobile health services is determined by five key factors: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, and threat appraisals. The results show that the unified model outperforms the three alternative models by significantly improving the R-squares. Finally, the implications for theory and practice are put forward.