Factors Affecting the Adoption of M-health Applications in Saudi Arabia: Impact of Healthcare Authority Enforcement.

Mobile health (m-health) applications offer new features to patients to increase the efficiency of healthcare services. However, adopting such technology has not been as expected in some developing countries such as Saudi Arabia. Yet, healthcare providers have recently started to force patients to use some mobile apps during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, it has opened the discussion of whether the enforcement of healthcare providers could influence patients' behavioral intention to adopt m-health apps. This study aims to understand and validate the factors that could influence mhealth apps' adoption. Based on the UTAUT model, the proposed model has been extended in this research to include healthcare authority enforcement and tested in Saudi Arabian settings with 343 participants. Findings show the significance of effort expectancy, social influence, and healthcare authority enforcement on behavioral intention. The outcome of this study aims to provide governments, practitioners, and app developers with further understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]