Continued use intention of wearable health technologies among the elderly: an enablers and inhibitors perspective
研究从促进因素和抑制因素两方面建模，分析影响中国老年人持续使用可穿戴健康技术的因素，发现社会价值是最强促进因素，惯性、技术焦虑是主要抑制因素。
Purpose Wearable health technologies (WHTs) show promise in improving the health and well-being of the aging population because they promote healthy lifestyles. They can be used to collect health information from users and encourage them to be physically active. Despite potential benefits of WHTs, recent studies have shown that older people have low continued use intention toward WHTs. Previous work on this topic is disjointed, and new theoretical viewpoints are required. Design/methodology/approach The authors propose an enablers and inhibitors perspective to model factors influencing continued use intention of WHTs among the elderly. To test the model, we collected data from Chinese elderly ( N = 295) who had prior experience using WHTs. Findings The study results show that social value is the strongest enabler of continued WHT use, and emotional and epistemic values and device quality also increase use continuance. Inertia and technology anxiety were identified as significant inhibitors. A post hoc importance performance map analysis revealed that while emotional value is a highly significant predictor of continued WHT use, existing WHTs do not stimulate such value in our sample. Research limitations/implications The research findings illustrate the importance of incorporating user resistance in technology acceptance studies in general and WHT usage studies in particular. This study contributes by providing an integrative model of technology continued use intention for the elderly along with practical implications for policymakers. Originality/value A limited number of prior studies have taken both enablers and inhibitors into account when explaining continued WHT use intention among the elderly. This paper fills this research gap and contributes to the WHT literature by considering both enablers and inhibitors in the same model. Moreover, this study contributes to the ongoing research on WHT, and more broadly, gerontechnology use among the elderly.