Patients’ Behavioral Intention toward Using Healthcare Robots

Abstract

Poor patient to doctor ratio in a large part of the world, rapid increase of the older adult population, and a growing shortage of nurses are acute problems that face the health care industry today. Despite of the broad undertaking in healthcare robot initiative, its success is dependent not only on health institutions and robot designers but also on patients’ willingness to adopt healthcare robots. To date, little research has attempted to explain the adoption of healthcare robots. This research is aimed to fill this gap by proposing a theoretical model. The model was tested using survey questionnaire. The empirical results confirm that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating condition and trust are determinants of patients’ behavioral intention to use healthcare robots. Several practical and theoretical implications are also discussed.