Search results

The goal of this research is to analyse the obstacles to the implementation of mobile health (mHealth) in India and to gain an understanding of the contextual inter-relationships that exist amongst those obstacles.

Potential barriers and their interrelationships in their respective contexts have been uncovered. Using MICMAC analysis, the categorization of these barriers was done based on their degree of reliance and driving power (DP). Furthermore, an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) framework for the barriers to mHealth activities in India has been proposed.

The study explores a total of 15 factors that reduce the efficiency of mHealth adoption in India. The findings of the Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification (MICMAC) investigation show that the economic situation of the government, concerns regarding the safety of intellectual technologies and privacy issues are the primary obstacles because of the significant driving power they have in mHealth applications.

Promoters of mHealth practices may be able to make better plans if they understand the social barriers and how they affect each other; this leads to easier adoption of these practices. The findings of this study might be helpful for governments of developing nations to produce standards relating to the deployment of mHealth; this will increase the efficiency with which it is adopted.

At this time, there is no comprehensive analysis of the factors that influence the adoption of mobile health care with social cognitive theory in developing nations like India. In addition, there is a lack of research in investigating how each of these elements affects the success of mHealth activities and how the others interact with them. Because developed nations learnt the value of mHealth practices during the recent pandemic, this study, by investigating the obstacles to the adoption of mHealth and their inter-relationships, makes an important addition to both theory and practice.

This study aims to deal with the paucity of studies in the stages of the development of loyalty behaviour of customers in the healthcare context by incorporating three crucial service quality dimensions (physical environment, personnel quality and technical quality) and also investigating trust and commitment as mediating factors.

Survey data were obtained from 420 respondents admitted to government hospitals in Kerala employing a convenience sampling method. The formulated hypotheses were tested using partial least square structural equation modelling.

Results indicate that patient satisfaction, trust and commitment can create favourable behavioural intentions amongst patients. When patients reveal higher trust, they are more inclined to value healthcare services and willing to commit to a long-term relationship, resulting in increased patient loyalty.

Organisational efforts should improve trust and commitment and build a good relationship between service providers and patients. Efforts should be taken to raise the standard of technical and personnel aspects, and a focus on physical infrastructure should also be considered to build a favourable behavioural intention to revisit and positive referrals.

This is the first empirical study to analyse technical quality, personnel quality and physical environment along with the mediating effect of trust, and commitment in a four-stage loyalty development model in the healthcare context of Kerala, India.