Factors affecting community pharmacy customers’ decision to use personal health records via smartphone

Abstract

Keywords: personal health record; health application; smartphone; self-care; technology adoption behavior

Objectives: One of the primary healthcare services offered by community pharmacists is health promotion and prevention. Pharmacists should support patients to take part in health information management and self-care management to make healthcare services more effective. Self-care is an important factor which helps to prevent and control the severity of chronic diseases. Having a personal health record application on a smartphone is an easy method to support individual to do self-care. Although there are many personal health record applications available in the market, few people have adopted them. The aim of this study is to identify factors affecting community pharmacy customers’ decision to use a personal health record app on a smartphone based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) theory.

Methods: An observational study design was conducted in Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 72 community pharmacy customers aged twenty-three years old and over were randomly selected. All received an explanation about personal health records, functions and features of the Microsoft HealthVault application, and were shown how to use it. Data collection was conducted using a cross-sectional survey by self-administered questionnaire. The data analysis was performed using multiple regression analysis. The study protocol, study materials, and study-related documents were approved by the Chulalongkorn University’s Institutional Review Boards (IRB).

Results: The key factor significantly affecting the intention to use a personal health record via a smartphone was social influence (p = 0.000). The result showed that performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), and voluntariness (Vol) together explained 56.4% of the variances for the intention to use PHR (INT).

Conclusion: Social influence was a key factor influencing the decision to use a personal health record via a smartphone of community pharmacy customers in Bangkok based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) theory. To enhance the intention to adopt and use a personal health record via a smartphone, the personal health record should have additional functions which benefit self-care such as tools for communication between users and health professionals and medication reminders. This will encourage users to employ a personal health record as a self-care tool to improve their health status.