Therefore, the barrier-related factors and moderators of social media adoption should be considered simultaneously. Therefore, it is important to elucidate the determinants of these two factors (PE & PEOU) in connection with social media. Concerns about privacy and confidentiality constitute a significant deterrent to the use of social media in the healthcare sector (Al-Muhtadi, Shahzad, Saleem, Jameel, & Orgun, 2019).
However, the impact of perceived boundary on PU and PEOU is unclear in the healthcare social media domain. It is important to note that studies of health professionals' self-efficacy on social media are relatively scarce. H11: Social media self-efficacy is significantly associated with health professionals' PU of social media use.
It will be interesting to see the effect of PU and PEOU on health professionals' behavioral intention to use social media for communication purposes. H15: Gender effects on the acceptance pattern of healthcare social media will be significant among healthcare professionals. H16: The effects of age on the acceptance pattern of healthcare social media will be significant among healthcare professionals.
H17: Frequency of use The effects of the acceptance model for social media in the health sector will be significant among health professionals.
4 Findings
- The demographic profiles
- Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Hypotheses Testing The individual measurement model fit was tested for all dependent and independent variables
- Discussion
- Impact of barrier-related factors .1 Information quality
- Moderating effect of Age, Gender and Usage frequency
- Theoretical Implications
- Practical Implications
- Limitations and future research
The first research question of this study was: what are the barriers that influence the use of social media by healthcare professionals. The result contradicts previous findings that showed a significant relationship between trust and PEOU in predicting consumers' use of social media for transactions (Hansen, Saridakis, & Benson, 2018). Thus, the threat to privacy reduces healthcare professionals' perceptions of their usefulness in social media-based healthcare environments.
This finding is consistent with previous research that found privacy threat to be one of the fundamental barriers to the use of social media by healthcare professionals, significantly influencing their perceptions of usefulness (Moorhead et al., 2013). This finding suggests that awareness of professional boundaries results in favorable perceptions of PU and PEOU in healthcare social media environments. Thus, the findings of the study confirm that organizational support would encourage healthcare professionals to use social media for professional reasons.
Finally, both PU and PEOU significantly influence the notion of behavioral intention to use social media for health-related communication. The finding confirms the idea that PU and PEOU are the main predictors of health professionals' intention to use social media in health care settings. This research questions the conventional wisdom that behavioral intention to use social media is directly related to some standard conventional antecedents.
In this context, the validated research framework can serve to evaluate the barriers to social media adoption. The generalization of PU and PEOU in healthcare is a complex issue, given the dynamic nature of social media that makes it difficult to generalize. However, this study revealed the impact of barrier-related factors on healthcare workers' behavioral intention to use social media.
It has taken into account the complexities associated with the moderating variables influencing health professionals' perceptions and use of social media in Australia. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning here that the introduction of social media in the healthcare system entails organizational changes. Although the results of this study point towards a good understanding of the factors influencing the intention to use social media by healthcare professionals, several limitations need to be understood.
First, this research did not attempt to examine the antecedents of the barriers to social media use from the perspective of any specific group of health professionals. Second, the model variables explain 54% of behavioral intention by health professionals to use social media.
The apparent differences between these two healthcare systems are also characterized by more frequent professional use of social media by US healthcare workers compared to their Australian counterparts (McGowan et al., 2012; Usher, 2012). Patients' and healthcare professionals' use of social media in healthcare: motives, barriers and expectations. Health professionals' beliefs about using wiki-based reminders to promote best practice in trauma care.
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