A Qualitative Method to Explain Acceptance of Mobile Health Application: Using Innovation Diffusion Theory

Abstract

The use of mobile health applications has grown exponentially and this study aims to investigate the main factors that influence the acceptance of mobile health applications among elderly people in Jordan. By employing the Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) as a theoretical grounding, this paper indicates that relative advantage, observability, trialability, and compatibility influence the acceptance of mobile health applications. In contrast, the results indicated that complexity appears to have a negative relationship with the acceptance of mobile health. A number of studies have been conducted on this topic, however, they were quantitative in nature. This study undertakes a qualitative research approach by means of gathering in-depth insight into this topic. Therefore, by means of a qualitative method, focus groups were conducted to gain depth insight into consumer’s intention to adopt mobile health applications. Moreover, this paper explored mobile health applications using IDT.