The dark side of elderly acceptance of preventive mobile health services in China

Mobile health services have become increasingly important for people, especially for the elderly. Despite the potential benefits, there are challenges and barriers for the elderly in adopting mobile health services. Drawing upon the dual factor model, we investigate the enablers and the inhibitors of the elderly mobile health service adoption behaviour. We also address two typical characteristics of elderly users - technology anxiety and dispositional resistance to change - to understand the antecedents of the enablers and the inhibitors. The hypothesized model is empirically tested using data collected from a field survey of 204 customers of a large elderly service providing company in China. The key findings include: (1) resistance to change influences perceived usefulness but does not influence perceived ease of use and adoption intention; (2) technology anxiety is negatively associated with perceived ease of use but positively associated with resistance to change; (3) dispositional resistance to change is negatively associated with perceived ease of use but positively associated with resistance to change. Implications for research and practice are discussed. © 2012 Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen.