How reliable are self-assessments using mobile technology in healthcare? The effects of technology identity and self-efficacy

By: Reychav I., Beeri R., Balapour A., Raban D.R., Sabherwal R., Azuri J.
Published in: Computers in Human Behavior
SDGs : SDG 03  |  Units: Social Sciences  | Time: 2019 |  Link
Description: Traditionally in clinics or hospitals, it is the staff (physician, nurses, and so forth) who would check the patient’s h ealth status (e.g., blood pressure, height, weight, body temperature, and so forth). However, when mobile apps are used as the point of contact between patients and healthcare providers, the self-monitoring of health status will be exposed to biases due to being done by common people. Therefore ‘self-report reliability’ becomes an essential factor in the mobile healthcare context. Drawing on ‘technology identity’ and ‘technology self-efficacy’ literature, we theorized that perceived mobile technology identity directly affects self-report reliability, and perceived self-efficacy moderates the relationship between the two. A sample of patients from a clinic who completed a survey and self-reported their health status using a mobile health app was collected. The results of the analyses suggest that academic education affects the reliability of self-reports. In addition, patients aged 61 and above were more accurate in reporting their health status. Moreover, we found that self-efficacy improves the accuracy of self-reports and moderates the effect of mobile technology identity on self-report reliability. The findings of this paper contribute to the ongoing research around mobile healthcare application use and issues surrounding this phenomenon. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd