An Min Ho, You Seng Chan, Park Rae Woong, Lee Seongwon
So-Ahn Public Health Center, Jeon-ra-nam-do, Republic of Korea.
Department of Biomedical Informatics, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon, Republic of Korea.
JMIR Med Inform. 2021 Jan 8;9(1):e25435. doi: 10.2196/25435.
Although telehealth is considered a key component in combating the worldwide crisis caused by COVID-19, the factors that influence its acceptance by the general population after the flattening of the COVID-19 curve remain unclear.
We aimed to identify factors affecting telehealth acceptance, including anxiety related to COVID-19, after the initial rapid spread of the disease in South Korea.
We proposed an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) and performed a cross-sectional survey of individuals aged ≥30 years. In total, 471 usable responses were collected. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the validity of measurements, and the partial least squares (PLS) method was used to investigate factors influencing telehealth acceptance and the impacts of COVID-19.
PLS analysis showed that increased accessibility, enhanced care, and ease of telehealth use had positive effects on its perceived usefulness (P=.002, P<.001, and P<.001, respectively). Furthermore, perceived usefulness, ease, and privacy/discomfort significantly impacted the acceptance of telehealth (P<.001, P<.001, and P<.001, respectively). However, anxiety toward COVID-19 was not associated with telehealth acceptance (P=.112), and this insignificant relationship was consistent in the cluster (n=216, 46%) of respondents with chronic diseases (P=.185).
Increased accessibility, enhanced care, usefulness, ease of use, and privacy/discomfort are decisive variables affecting telehealth acceptance in the Korean general population, whereas anxiety about COVID-19 is not. This study may lead to a tailored promotion of telehealth after the pandemic subsides.
尽管远程医疗被视为应对由COVID-19引发的全球危机的关键组成部分，但在COVID-19曲线趋于平缓后，影响普通民众接受远程医疗的因素仍不明确。
我们旨在确定在韩国疾病最初快速传播后影响远程医疗接受度的因素，包括与COVID-19相关的焦虑。
我们提出了一个扩展的技术接受模型（TAM），并对30岁及以上的个体进行了横断面调查。总共收集了471份可用回复。使用验证性因子分析来检验测量的有效性，并使用偏最小二乘法（PLS）来研究影响远程医疗接受度的因素以及COVID-19的影响。
PLS分析表明，可及性增加、护理增强和远程医疗使用便捷对其感知有用性有积极影响（分别为P = 0.002、P < 0.001和P < 0.001）。此外，感知有用性、便捷性和隐私/不适感对远程医疗的接受度有显著影响（分别为P < 0.001、P < 0.001和P < 0.001）。然而，对COVID-19的焦虑与远程医疗接受度无关（P = 0.112），并且在患有慢性病的受访者群体（n = 216，46%）中这种不显著的关系是一致的（P = 0.185）。
可及性增加、护理增强、有用性、易用性和隐私/不适感是影响韩国普通民众接受远程医疗的决定性变量，而对COVID-19的焦虑则不是。这项研究可能会在疫情消退后促成对远程医疗的针对性推广。
