title: Determinants of the intention to use e-Health by community dwelling older people.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In the future, an increasing number of elderly people will be asked to accept care delivered through the Internet. For example, health-care professionals can provide treatment or support via telecare. But do elderly people intend to use such so-called e-Health applications? The objective of this study is to gain insight into the intention of older people, i.e. the elderly of the future, to use e-Health applications. Using elements of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), we hypothesized that their intention is related to the belief that e-Health will help (performance expectancy), the perceived ease of use (effort expectancy), the beliefs of important others (social influence), and the self-efficacy concerning Internet usage.
  
  
  METHODS
  A pre-structured questionnaire was completed by 1014 people aged between 57 and 77 (response 67%). The hypothesized relationships were tested using nested linear regression analyses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  If offered an e-Health application in the future, 63.1% of the respondents would definitely or probably use it. In general, people with a lower level of education had less intention of using e-Health. The majority of respondents perceived e-Health as easy to use (60.8%) and easy to learn (68.4%), items that constitute the scale for effort expectancy. Items in the performance expectancy scale generally scored lower: 45.8% perceived e-Health as useful and 38.2% perceived it as a pleasant way to interact. The tested model showed that expected performance and effort were highly related to intention to use e-Health. In addition, self-efficacy was related to intention to use while social influence was not.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Acceptance of e-Health can be increased by informing people about the potential benefits of e-Health and letting them practice with the application. Special attention should be paid to people with less education and people who have not used the Internet before.
authors.affiliation: NIVEL, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, PO box 1568, 3500 BN, Utrecht, The Netherlands. a.deveer@nivel.nl.
authors.forename: Anke J E
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: de Veer
authors.affiliation: NIVEL, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, PO box 1568, 3500 BN, Utrecht, The Netherlands. j.peeters@nivel.nl.
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Peeters
authors.affiliation: NIVEL, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, PO box 1568, 3500 BN, Utrecht, The Netherlands. a.brabers@nivel.nl.
authors.forename: Anne E M
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Brabers
authors.affiliation: NIVEL, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, PO box 1568, 3500 BN, Utrecht, The Netherlands. f.schellevis@nivel.nl.|Department of General Practice and Elderly Care Medicine/EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. f.schellevis@nivel.nl.
authors.forename: Francois G
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Schellevis
authors.affiliation: NIVEL, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, PO box 1568, 3500 BN, Utrecht, The Netherlands. j.rademakers@nivel.nl.
authors.forename: Jany J D J M
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Rademakers
authors.affiliation: NIVEL, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, PO box 1568, 3500 BN, Utrecht, The Netherlands. a.francke@nivel.nl.|Department of Public and Occupational Health, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. a.francke@nivel.nl.|Expertise Center for Palliative Care Amsterdam, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. a.francke@nivel.nl.
authors.forename: Anneke L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Francke
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D054626:Consumer Health Information; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D057187:Independent Living; D033182:Intention; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013672:Technology