Paganin Giulia, Apolinário-Hagen Jennifer, Simbula Silvia
Department of Medical and Surgical Science, Alma Mater Studiorum-University of Bologna, Bologna, 40126 Italy.
Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Curr Psychol. 2022 Oct 27:1-12. doi: 10.1007/s12144-022-03856-8.
Stress represents a significant risk factor for several psychophysical diseases among college students, such as depression and anxiety, which may undermine their academic functioning, resulting in high drop rates from college. Nevertheless, university services for mental health promotion are typically underutilized. As a result, professionals and authorities strive to find new ways to address students' mental health needs. In this view, mobile apps seem appropriate for well-being promotion interventions. Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which is the most widely used theory on users' intention to use technologies, we assumed that perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) would be positively related to intention to use (INT), and PEOU would be positively related to PU among both Italian and German university students. To test our hypotheses, we replicated the same cross-sectional study in Italy ( = 255) and Germany ( = 228) with university students. Although we found partial scalar invariance of the TAM dimensions across the two nations, our predictions were only partially confirmed: PEOU was positively related to PU in the Italian sample only. Overall, this study is one of the first empirical attempts to compare TAM cross-nationally within the European context and it contributes to the small but increasing body of research investigating students' acceptance of smartphone-based interventions for stress management and well-being promotion. Understanding mobile health acceptance could help universities increase students' chances of adopting the proposed services, considering the factors influencing this choice.
压力是大学生多种身心疾病的重要风险因素，如抑郁症和焦虑症，这些疾病可能会损害他们的学业表现，导致大学辍学率居高不下。然而，大学促进心理健康的服务通常未得到充分利用。因此，专业人士和当局努力寻找新方法来满足学生的心理健康需求。从这个角度来看，移动应用程序似乎适合用于促进幸福感的干预措施。借鉴技术接受模型（TAM），这是关于用户使用技术意图的最广泛使用的理论，我们假设感知有用性（PU）和感知易用性（PEOU）与使用意图（INT）呈正相关，并且在意大利和德国的大学生中，PEOU与PU呈正相关。为了检验我们的假设，我们在意大利（n = 255）和德国（n = 228）对大学生进行了相同的横断面研究。尽管我们发现TAM维度在两个国家之间存在部分标量不变性，但我们的预测仅得到部分证实：仅在意大利样本中，PEOU与PU呈正相关。总体而言，本研究是在欧洲背景下跨国比较TAM的首批实证尝试之一，它为研究学生对基于智能手机的压力管理和幸福感促进干预措施的接受度的少量但不断增加的研究做出了贡献。考虑到影响这一选择的因素，了解移动健康接受度有助于大学增加学生采用所提议服务的机会。
