Understanding the Acceptance of Health Management Mobile Services: Integrating Theory of Planned Behavior and Health Belief Model

With the increasingly aging population and health information technology (IT) advances, self-health management has become an important topic. In particular, middle-aged and elderly people are considered to have higher risks of contracting multiple chronic diseases and complications, thus increasing the need for healthcare. For this reason, the Taiwan Health Promotion Administration (HPA) intends to build the health management mobile service (HMMS) whereby everyone's health records will be stored in the health promotion platform. The HMMS improves transmission of personalized preventive health information to those most in need. Although several prior researches have focused on the factors that impact on the adoption or use of health information management and electronic medical record, however, the literature directly related to people' self-health management behavior toward HMMS is scant. Thus, this study proposes a theoretical model to explain citizen's intention to use a personal health information system in self-health management. A field survey was conducted in Taiwan to collect data from citizens. A total of 105 valid responses were obtained, constituting a response rate of 97.88%. The results indicate that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived susceptibility have positive effects on usage intention. However, perceived behavioral control and perceived severity do not significantly affect behavioral intention. The study has implications on the development of strategies to improve personal health IT acceptance.