Exploring Patients' Intentions for Continuous Usage of mHealth Services: Elaboration-Likelihood Perspective Study

BACKGROUND: With the increasingly rapid development of Web 2.0 technologies, the application of mobile health (mHealth) care 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. The elaboration-likelihood model (ELM) is a dual-process persuasion theory that describes the change of attitudes and behavior. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we drew on the ELM to investigate patients’ continuous usage intentions regarding mHealth services. In addition, we further examined which route—central or peripheral—has a stronger impact on a patient’s usage of health care management. METHODS: To meet these objectives, five hypotheses were developed and empirically validated using a field survey to test the direct and indirect effects, via attitude, of the two routes on continuous usage intention. RESULTS: We found that patients’ perceived mHealth information quality and perceived mHealth system quality had a positive effect on their personal attitudes. The results revealed that social media influence had a positive effect on a patient’s attitude toward 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 services 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 uptake of mHealth services within their organizations.