Appiah Bernard, Burdine James N, Aftab Ammar, Asamoah-Akuoko Lucy, Anum David A, Kretchy Irene A, Samman Elfreda W, Appiah Patience B, Bates Imelda
Research Program on Public and International Engagement for Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Texas A&M School of Public Health, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, TX, United States.
Centre for Science and Health Communication, Accra, Ghana.
JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2018 May 4;6(5):e117. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.9752.
Voluntary blood donation rates are low in sub-Saharan Africa. Sociobehavioral factors such as a belief that donated blood would be used for performing rituals deter people from donating blood. There is a need for culturally appropriate communication interventions to encourage individuals to donate blood. Health care interventions that use mobile phones have increased in developing countries, although many of them focus on SMS text messaging (short message service, SMS). A unique feature of mobile phones that has so far not been used for aiding blood donation is caller tunes. Caller tunes replace the ringing sound heard by a caller to a mobile phone before the called party answers the call. In African countries such as Ghana, instead of the typical ringing sound, a caller may hear a message or song. Despite the popularity of such caller tunes, there is a lack of empirical studies on their potential use for promoting blood donation.
The aim of this study was to use the technology acceptance model to explore the influence of the factors-perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude, and free of cost-on intentions of blood or nonblood donors to download blood donation-themed caller tunes to promote blood donation, if available.
A total of 478 blood donors and 477 nonblood donors were purposively sampled for an interviewer-administered questionnaire survey at blood donation sites in Accra, Ghana. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factory analysis or structural equation modeling, leading to hypothesis testing to examine factors that determine intention to use caller tunes for blood donation among blood or nonblood donors who use or do not use mobile phone caller tunes.
Perceived usefulness had a significant effect on intention to use caller tunes among blood donors with caller tunes (beta=.293, P<.001), blood donors without caller tunes (beta=.165, P=.02, nonblood donors with caller tunes (beta=.278, P<.001), and nonblood donors without caller tunes (beta=.164, P=.01). Attitudes had significant effect on intention to use caller tunes among blood donors without caller tunes (beta=.351, P<.001), nonblood donors with caller tunes (beta=.384, P<.001), nonblood donors without caller tunes (beta=.539, P<.001) but not among blood donors with caller tunes (beta=.056, P=.44). The effect of free-of-cost caller tunes on the intention to use for blood donation was statistically significant (beta=.169, P<.001) only in the case of nonblood donors without caller tunes, whereas this path was statistically not significant in other models.
Our results provide empirical evidence for designing caller tunes to promote blood donation in Ghana. The study found that making caller tunes free is particularly relevant for nonblood donors with no caller tunes.
撒哈拉以南非洲地区的自愿无偿献血率较低。社会行为因素，如认为捐献的血液会被用于仪式，阻碍了人们献血。需要采取符合文化背景的沟通干预措施来鼓励个人献血。在发展中国家，使用手机的医疗保健干预措施有所增加，尽管其中许多侧重于短信（短消息服务，SMS）。手机的一个独特功能——来电铃声，迄今为止尚未用于促进献血。来电铃声在被叫方接听电话之前取代主叫方听到的手机铃声。在加纳等非洲国家，主叫方可能听到的不是典型的铃声，而是一条信息或一首歌。尽管这种来电铃声很受欢迎，但缺乏关于其促进献血潜在用途的实证研究。
本研究旨在使用技术接受模型，探讨感知易用性、感知有用性、态度和免费等因素对献血者或非献血者下载献血主题来电铃声以促进献血意愿（若有）的影响。
在加纳阿克拉的献血地点，共抽取了478名献血者和477名非献血者进行面对面问卷调查。使用描述性统计、探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析或结构方程模型对数据进行分析，从而进行假设检验，以检查在使用或不使用手机来电铃声的献血者或非献血者中，决定使用来电铃声促进献血意愿的因素。
感知有用性对有来电铃声的献血者（β = 0.293，P < 0.001）、没有来电铃声的献血者（β = 0.165，P = 0.02）、有来电铃声的非献血者（β = 0.278，P < 0.001）和没有来电铃声的非献血者（β = 0.164，P = 0.01）使用来电铃声的意愿有显著影响。态度对没有来电铃声的献血者（β = 0.351，P < 0.001）、有来电铃声的非献血者（β = 0.384，P < 0.001）、没有来电铃声的非献血者（β = 0.539，P < 0.001）使用来电铃声的意愿有显著影响，但对有来电铃声的献血者没有显著影响（β = 0.056，P = 0.44）。免费来电铃声对献血意愿的影响仅在没有来电铃声的非献血者中具有统计学意义（β = 0.169，P < 0.001），而在其他模型中这条路径没有统计学意义。
我们的研究结果为设计来电铃声以促进加纳的献血提供了实证依据。研究发现，对没有来电铃声的非献血者来说，使来电铃声免费尤为重要。
