Predicting Mobile Health Technology Acceptance by the Indian Rural Community: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

To investigate factors that influence mobile health technology and application acceptance for health service delivery in India. The paper identifies a technology acceptance model that can be limited to the Indian rural populations. The data is collected from 60 semi-structured interviews with rural populations, including doctors. Contents of these phases were transcribed, and quotes are presented constituting a proposed technology acceptance model. Findings indicate that people in the rural community have mobile phones and are mainly used to communicate by phone calls their relatives, friends, and family members. The study also revealed that a lack of knowledge, mobile literacy, trust, social influence, individual cognitive factors, and technical infrastructure were found to influence mobile phone use for health activities. Triangulating the findings from the literature and interview, the study has identified a set of interrelated acceptance factors that the authors proposed as mobile health technology acceptance model for the rural community of India.