Older Adults’ Actual Use and Adoption Intention of Smart Health Care Technologies in Hong Kong

Abstract

Smart health care technologies (SHCTs) can assist older adults to manage their health and acquire convenient medical and caring services, which can support older adults to live healthy and independent lives. Currently, there are various kinds of SHCTs, such as smart wearable devices, smart health monitors, health care applications, and nursing and assistive robots. Nevertheless, due to the decrease of physical and cognitive capabilities, older adults may encounter many difficulties and problems when applying different types of SHCTs, which could affect their willingness to adopt SHCTs. However, there is still unclear about Hong Kong older adults’ actual use and intention adoption of different types of SHCTs, as well as the possible factors relevant to adoption. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate Hong Kong older adults’ actual use and adoption intention of different kinds of SHCTs, and explore the possible factors of SHCTs adoption. We employed a structured interview to approach the actual use and adoption intention of four types of SHCTs and recruited eight Hong Kong older adults from a local community. The data analysis revealed the most popular and the least used types of SHCTs. The reasons for adopting SHCTs and possible factors of adoption intention toward each kind of SHCTs were discussed.