Dataset Information

Factors Influencing the Acceptance of Pediatric Telemedicine Services in China: A Cross-Sectional Study

ABSTRACT: Background: Pediatrician workforce shortages have aroused great attention from health authorities in China. Telemedicine services have been known to enhance the management of children's health, yet the rate of adoption and usage in Chinese hospitals still at a quite low level, and the factors influencing the acceptance of telemedicine services remains unclear. Objective: The purpose of this empirical study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of a technology acceptance measurement instrument applied in healthcare, to investigate the perception of telemedicine services on the provider-side and demand-side, and to determine the factors that may drive individuals to adopt telemedicine services. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study based at Shanghai Children's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was conducted in March 2020. A total of 456 valid responses were obtained by convenience sampling. The internal consistency of items was assessed by Cronbach's alpha (α), composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) to evaluate both the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling analysis was used to test and verify the interrelationships among relevant variables. Results: Price value is the strongest predictor (β = 0.30, p = 0.02), facilitating conditions (β = 0.28, p = 0.01) and hedonic motivation (β = 0.13, p = 0.04) also have significantly positive direct effects on telemedicine acceptance. The results showed the perception of child patients' families were significantly more acceptable to telemedicine services than pediatricians (t = −2.99, p < 0.01). Participants with no prior experience and lower education may be more willing to adopt telemedicine. Conclusion: Telemedicine will likely continue to have an integral role in pediatric health care delivery, and the findings can assist policy makers and hospital administrators in determining the more valued characteristics of telemedicine services from a behavioral perspective. Future attention will be paid to the pricing, training and service quality of telemedicine in China.

SUBMITTER: Shi J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8558490 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundOnline hospitals are part of an innovative model that allows China to explore telemedicine services based on national conditions with large populations, uneven distribution of medical resources, and lack of quality medical resources, especially among residents needing to be protected from COVID-19 infection.ObjectiveIn this study, we built a hypothesis model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) in order to analyze the factors that may influence patients’ willingness to use mobile medical services. This research was designed to assist in the development of mobile medical services. Residents who do not live in urban areas and cannot access medical assistance would greatly benefit from this research, as they could immediately go to the online hospital when needed.MethodsA cross-sectional study based at the West China Hospital, Sichuan University, was conducted in July 2020. A total of 407 respondents, 18 to 59 years old, in Western China were recruited by convenience sampling. We also conducted an empirical test for the hypothesis model and applied structural equation modeling to estimate the significance of path coefficients so that we could better understand the influencing factors.ResultsOut of 407 respondents, 95 (23.3%) were aware of online hospitals, while 312 (76.7%) indicated that they have never heard of online hospitals before. Gender (P=.048) and education level (P=.04) affected people's willingness to use online hospitals, and both of these factors promoted the use of online hospitals (odds ratio [OR] 2.844, 95% CI 1.010-8.003, and OR 2.187, 95% CI 1.031-4.636, respectively). According to structural equation modeling, the results of the path coefficient analysis indicated that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and facilitating conditions have positive effects on patients' willingness to use online hospitals.ConclusionsThe goal of our research was to determine the factors that influence patients' awareness and willingness to use online hospitals. Currently, the public's awareness and usage of online hospitals is low. In fact, effort expectancy was the most important factor that influenced the use of online hospitals; being female and having a high education also played positive roles toward the use of mobile medical services.

Project description:BackgroundHealth care technologies can help improve workers' health and productivity by supporting workplace health promotion. A personal health record app is used to manage medical data such as results from medical checkups, which facilitates decision making for medical personnel. However, an analysis of users' technology acceptance is required to provide appropriate services based on personal health record apps.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to analyze the factors influencing the behavioral intention of health experts and workers to use an app in workers' health centers and to examine differences in their perception of the main variables.MethodsThe study involved health experts and workers who visited 21 workers' health centers in Korea to verify a research model in which perceived risk was added to the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, a representative theory of information technology acceptance. After receiving ethical approval from the Korea National Institute for Bioethics Policy, 1050 questionnaires were distributed over 7 weeks with cooperation of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency. A multiple linear regression analysis and multigroup path analysis were performed to verify the hypotheses, and independent samples t tests were performed to analyze differences between workers' and health experts' perception of the main variables.ResultsThe analysis included data from 866 respondents (687 workers and 179 health experts). Effort expectancy (beta=.08, P=.03), social influence (beta=.43, P<.001), performance expectancy (beta=.07, P=.008), and facilitating conditions (beta=.13, P<.001) exerted significant positive effects on behavioral intention, whereas perceived risk (beta=-.29, P<.001) exerted a significant negative effect on behavioral intention. Performance expectancy had a significant effect on path differences depending on gender (critical ratio=-3.38) and age (critical ratio=1.97). Workers' mean scores for the main variables were higher relative to those of health experts for all remaining variables except perceived risk, and significant differences were observed for all remaining variables except facilitating condition.ConclusionsSocial influence exerted the strongest effect on behavioral intention to use the personal health record app. Consequently, it is necessary to coordinate health promotion activities in the workplace as well as the operational direction of community institutions such as in workers' health centers to allow workers to manage their own health via continuous use of the app. In addition, the app should be developed based on a requirement analysis of the balance between both interest groups in consideration of differences in perspective between consumers and service providers.

Project description:BackgroundTelemedicine has been used widely in China and has benefited a large number of patients, but little is known about the overall development of telemedicine.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to perform a national survey to identify the overall implementation and application of telemedicine in Chinese tertiary hospitals and provide a scientific basis for the successful expansion of telemedicine in the future.MethodsThe method of probability proportionate to size sampling was adopted to collect data from 161 tertiary hospitals in 29 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. Charts and statistical tests were applied to compare the development of telemedicine, including management, network, data storage, software and hardware equipment, and application of telemedicine. Ordinal logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between these factors and telemedicine service effect.ResultsApproximately 93.8% (151/161) of the tertiary hospitals carried out telemedicine services in business-to-business mode. The most widely used type of telemedicine network was the virtual private network with a usage rate of 55.3% (89/161). Only a few tertiary hospitals did not establish data security and cybersecurity measures. Of the 161 hospitals that took part in the survey, 100 (62.1%) conducted remote videoconferencing supported by hardware instead of software. The top 5 telemedicine services implemented in the hospitals were teleconsultation, remote education, telediagnosis of medical images, tele-electrocardiography, and telepathology, with coverage rates of 86.3% (139/161), 57.1% (92/161), 49.7% (80/161), 37.9% (61/161), and 33.5% (54/161), respectively. The average annual service volume of teleconsultation reached 714 cases per hospital. Teleconsultation and telediagnosis were the core charging services. Multivariate analysis indicated that the adoption of direct-to-consumer mode (P=.003), support from scientific research funds (P=.01), charging for services (P<.001), number of medical professionals (P=.04), network type (P=.02), sharing data with other hospitals (P=.04), and expertise level (P=.03) were related to the effect of teleconsultation. Direct-to-consumer mode (P=.01), research funding (P=.01), charging for services (P=.01), establishment of professional management departments (P=.04), and 15 or more instances of remote education every month (P=.01) were found to significantly influence the effect of remote education.ConclusionsA variety of telemedicine services have been implemented in tertiary hospitals in China with a promising prospect, but the sustainability and further standardization of telemedicine in China are still far from accomplished.

Project description:Background In Korea, conventional medicine (CM) and traditional Korean medicine (KM) are run as a dual healthcare system; however, the backgrounds and characteristics of the users of both medical services have not yet been compared. This study aimed to identify the differences in factors determining the use of CM and KM health services. Methods A secondary data analysis of a nationwide cross-sectional survey was conducted in this study. The Survey on the Experience with Healthcare Services 2017 asked participants about their most recent outpatient visit to a health service. Initially, a descriptive analysis was performed on respondents who visited the CM or KM health service in the last 12 months. Then, logistic regression analysis using Andersen’s behavioral model was performed, to identify the factors affecting health service selection, by classifying demographic variables into predisposing, enabling, and need factors. Respondents who replied they did not frequently use CM/KM and those with missing data were excluded. Results Of the total 11,098 respondents, 7,116 (64.1%) reported to have used CM/KM: 2,034 (18.3%), 4,475 (40.3%), and 607 (5.5%) for hospital CM, clinic CM, and KM, respectively. In logistic regression analysis, of the 2,723 (24.5%) respondents analyzed, 822 (7.4%) went to a hospital, 1,689 (15.2%) to a clinic, and 212 (1.9%) opted for KM service. Respondents with a higher number of chronic diseases were less likely to use KM (one disease, odds ratio: 0.52, 95% confidence interval: 0.36–0.76; two diseases: 0.51, 0.31–0.85; three to five diseases: 0.26, 0.10–0.69). Respondents with a high income were likely to go to the hospital (4Q vs. 1Q: 1.92, 1.35–2.72) and less likely to go to the clinic (4Q vs. 1Q: 0.49, 0.35–0.68). Conclusions Significant differences were observed on the enabling factor (income) for CM and need factors (number of chronic diseases) for KM. Our analysis suggests that through the healthcare policy, we should consider stratifying user backgrounds and needs for each medical service. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12906-022-03641-x.

Project description:BackgroundWith rapid development of China's economy, there were over 68.7 million left-behind children (LBC) in China whose mental health has become a problem of public concern. The present cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the status of mental health and its associated factors of LBC aged 3-16?years old in both rural and urban areas.MethodsA total of 4187 children (aged 3-16), including 1471 LBC and 2716 non-left-behind children (NLBC), were recruited from 50 communities (22 in urban areas and 28 in rural areas) in Guangdong, China in August, 2014. The mental health problems were assessed using the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ).ResultsNo statistically significant difference of SDQ subscales scores about difficulties were found between LBC and NLBC on the whole participants as well as in rural areas or in urban areas within the same age group after adjustments were made (all p?>?0.05). However, compared with NLBC in the same areas, urban LBC tended to have higher prosocial behaviours scores, while rural LBC had the lowest prosocial behaviours scores not only in the whole age group but also in different age subgroups (p?<?0.05). Besides, compared with urban LBC, rural LBC were not worse in SDQ subscales scores except for prosocial behaviour at 7-9 age group (p?=?0.003). Furthermore, higher paternal educational level and longer duration of parental absence, were associated with less difficulties in both rural and urban LBC. Besides, shorter duration of talk per-time but higher communication frequency were associated with less difficulties in rural LBC.ConclusionsThe present study demonstrated that in general, no difference of mental health problems were found between LBC and NLBC. Besides, longer duration of parental absence, shorter duration of talk per time but more communication frequency, and higher paternal educational level tend to have better development of mental health. The findings reinforce the importance of the stability of caregivers and the effective parent-child communication for Chinese rural LBC.

Dataset Information

Factors Influencing the Acceptance of Pediatric Telemedicine Services in China: A Cross-Sectional Study

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets