Prediction of intentions to adopt biocidal textile products in health care facilities

This research investigated the effects of selected sociological, psychological, and economic variables on acceptance of an innovative medical textile product in health care facilities. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model was employed to predict likelihood of purchasing/using biocidal medical textiles by hospital purchasing agents and health care workers. Two promising predictors, attitude toward switching from one product to another and innovativeness, were added to the original TPB and thus an extension of this model was derived for this particular study. A sample of eight hundred hospital purchasing agents and eight hundred health care workers were randomly selected from the American Hospital Association Directory and asked to complete a questionnaire including a question on the likelihood of purchasing/using biocidal medical textiles in the next year.; Results showed the TPB model was improved by adding two new predictors, attitude toward switching from one product to another and innovativeness, in the hospital purchasing agent sample, but not in the health care worker sample. In other words, different models are needed to predict adoption by hospital administrators versus health care workers. Subjective norm was also found to be significant in the hospital purchasing agent sample, indicating personal communication and networking can play important roles in biocidal medical textile acceptance among purchasing agents. A repeated measures ANOVA of rankings of selected medical textile properties indicated that purchasing agents place more emphasis on external issues such as "compliance with regulations" and "price", whereas health care workers emphasize the personal aspects of medical textiles such as "barrier protection" and "antimicrobial properties". Tukey HSD comparisons indicated willingness to pay more for biocidal medical textiles is related to profession of respondents and size of hospitals. That is, hospital purchasing agents are more concerned about cost than are health care workers and medium sized hospitals are willing to pay more for biocidal medical textiles, than are small hospitals or large hospitals. Though hospital purchasing agents are less willing to pay more for biocidal medical textiles, a one-way ANOVA showed that, setting price aside, they are more likely to adopt them than are health care workers. A double-bounded logit model was used to estimate the mean willingness to pay for biocidal medical textiles: it was 103.19% of the current market price for purchasing agents, and 105.00% for health care workers.