The Acceptance Behavior of Smart Home Health Care Services in South Korea: An Integrated Model of UTAUT and TTF

Abstract

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of home health care to manage and monitor one's health status in a home environment became more crucial than ever. This change raised the need for smart home health care services (SHHSs) and their extension to everyday life. However, the factors influencing the acceptance behavior of SHHSs have been inadequately investigated and failed to address why users have the intention to use and adopt the services. This study aimed to analyze the influential factors and measure the behavioral acceptance of SHHSs in South Korea. This study adopted the integrated model of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and task-technology fit (TTF) to understand the behavioral acceptance of SHHSs from users' perceptions and task-technology fit. Multiple-item scales were established based on validated previous measurement scales and adjusted in accordance with SHHS context. Data from 487 valid samples were analyzed statistically, applying partial least square structural equation modeling. The results indicated that the integrated acceptance model explained 55.2% of the variance in behavioral intention, 44.9% of adoption, and 62.5% of the continuous intention to use SHHSs, supporting 11 of the 13 proposed hypotheses. Behavioral intention was positively influenced by users' perceptions on performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and functional conditions. Task-technology fit significantly influenced performance expectancy and behavioral intention, validating the linkage between the two models. Meanwhile, task characteristics were insignificant to determine task-technology fit, which might stem from complex home health care needs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but were not sufficiently resolved by current service technologies. The findings implied that the acceptance of SHHSs needs to be evaluated according to both the user perceptions of technologies and the matching fit of task and technology. Theoretically, this study supports the applicability of the integrated model of UTAUT and TTF to the domain of SHHS, and newly proposed the measurement items of TTF reflecting the domain specificity of SHHS, providing empirical evidence during the pandemic era in South Korea. Practically, the results could suggest to the planners and strategists of home health care services how to promote SHHS in one's health management.