A Study On The Public’s Willingness To Use Mobile Health Services Based On A Multi-theoretical Integration Perspective

With the implementation of the "three children" policy and the aging of the population,China is facing a great contradiction between the growing need for healthcare and the relatively limited healthcare resources,and mobile health services have emerged.Mobile health services can provide simpler and lower-cost health care services to people especially in areas with severe shortage of health care resources,and greatly improve the quality and efficiency of health care resources utilization.However,due to the large population in China,the low level of health information literacy and other factors,the development of mobile health services in China still faces many challenges to match the developed countries.In order to improve the public’s willingness to use mobile health services and promote the development of mobile health services,this study examines the factors that influence the public’s willingness to use mobile health services with the public as the research object.Since few existing studies have jointly explored the factors influencing the public’s willingness to use from the perspectives of both technology acceptance and health behavior,and at the same time,few scholars have used the mixed method of structural equation modeling and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to study the public’s willingness to use m Health services.Therefore,in this paper,based on some variables of technology acceptance model and protection motivation theory,while extending the variables in other theoretical models,a mixed method of structural equation modeling and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis is used to study the public willingness to use m Health services using SPSS26.0,AMOS26.0,and fs QCA3.0software,and finally,based on the results of the analysis,recommendations are made to the public,healthcare workers,m Health service providers,and the government to promote the use of m Health services by the public.The findings of the study are as follows:(1)The theoretical basis of the study and the research variables were identified after combing through the literature on the willingness to use m Health services at home and abroad through the literature research method.These variables were perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in the technology acceptance model;perceived susceptibility and perceived severity in the protection motivation theory;social influence in UTAUT;hedonic motivation in UTAUT2 and perceived privacy risk in the privacy calculation theory.(2)The structural equation modeling analysis revealed that perceived usefulness,perceived ease of use,perceived privacy risk,perceived susceptibility,hedonic motivation,and social influence all significantly affect the public’s willingness to use m Health services,while perceived severity has no significant effect on the public’s willingness to use.(3)Based on the qualitative comparative analysis of fuzzy sets,we know that the combination of perceived susceptibility,hedonic motivation and social influence is the optimal path to influence the public’s willingness to use m Health services,i.e.,this combination of variables is most likely to lead to the public’s willingness to use m Health services.In addition,there are three other groups that are also more likely to lead to the public’s willingness to use.Based on the results of the empirical analysis,feasible and constructive suggestions are proposed from the public,healthcare workers(hospitals),service providers,and the government in order to induce the public’s willingness to use mobile healthcare services.