Determinants of acceptance of eHealth technology by Health Care Practitioners in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

Objective: To determine determinants of acceptance of eHealth technology by health care practitioners in Nairobi County, Kenya.
Design: A descriptive, cross-sectional study.
Setting: Nairobi County, Kenya.
Participants: Health care workers engaged in active clinical practice in Nairobi County, Kenya
Methodology: Participants’ eHealth experiences were recorded using an interviewer administered questionnaire with both open ended and closed questions. SPSS version 24.0 was used for descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results: A total of 165 participants were recruited into the study on the basis of informed consent. The male: female ratio was 1:1.4 and 67.2% of HCWs in this study were under the age of 35. Under the studied micro-factors, ICT literacy (p <0.05), attitudes (p <0.05), self- efficacy (p < 0.05), usefulness (p < 0.05) had a statistically significant correlation to willingness to use eHealth while management support (p<0.05), infrastructure (p<0.05), hospital culture (p<0.05), ICT systems (p<0.05) under the category of meso-factors showed similar relation. None of the macro factors in this study showed statistically significant correlation to the willingness to use eHealth.
Conclusion: There was a clear discrepancy between access to ICT technology and eHealth uptake in public health practice. Individual (micro-level) and contextual (meso-level) factors were stronger determinants of uptake than macro-level factors.