| Summary: | 博士 === 國立臺北護理健康大學 === 護理研究所 === 102 === The rapid aging of the global population has caused chronic disease to become increasingly prominent. To fulfill the increasingly needed quality and quantity demands for long-term care, combining health care and telehealth information technology is a topic that is gradually gaining health attention. Numerous countries hope to integrate technology into their health care systems, and thereby enable elderly people to maintain their independence, manage their diseases, and maintain mental, physical, and social wellbeing. In this study, we applied a mixed-research method using a two-phase exploratory continuous design. In the first phase, we collected qualitative data to investigate the starting point of technology acceptance in implementing telehealth for middle- aged and elderly patients. We performed in-depth interviews with middle- aged and elderly patients (telehealth recipients) . The interviews and data collection were conducted according to semistructured interview guides, and the results of each phase were subjected to content analysis. The interview results were classified into four main topics: “barriers to technology acceptance—the additional responsibility of elders,” “factors in promoting equipment usage,” “professional trust,” and “the empowerment experienced when managing diseases.” These results were combined with reference material to establish variables and propose a hypothesis based on the presented theoretical framework. In the second phase, we developed a scale for telehealth acceptance by middle- aged and elderly patients, and applied expert validity and a scale pretest to construct a model for the telehealth of user’s. Subsequently, we performed question tests and constructed a technology acceptance model. We applied the partial least squares (PLS) method to verify the construction of this model in which technology acceptance demonstrated by middle- aged and elderly telehealth patients with chronic diseases was targeted. The results indicated that nurse influence and disease management empowerment are two crucial external variables the use of telehealth methods.“Nurse influence”,“disease management empowerment”, and“perceived ease of use”all positively affected “perceived usefulness”; moreover,“perceived usefulness”positively affected the “intention to use”, and the“intention to use”positively affected the“continued willingness to use”. The results of this study may serve as a reference for health care and information technology design improvement during the implementation of telehealth services. Thus, the advantages of technology can be commonly applied in telehealth on chronic illness population, , and may assist in the development of healthcare policies for middle- aged and elderly people toward the goal of “local caring and natural aging.”
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