TY  - EJOU
AU  - Pyun, Do Young 
AU  - Wang, Bingjie 
AU  - Choi, Kyong Keun 
AU  - Kim, Sungjae 
AU  - Koo, Taeyeon 

TI  - Health Empowerment and Intention to Use Digital Health Technologies among Korean Older Adults: Extending the Technology Acceptance Model
T2  - International Journal of Mental Health Promotion

PY  - 
VL  - 
IS  - 
SN  - 2049-8543

AB  - <b>Backgrounds:</b> South Korea is one of the world’s fastest-aging societies, facing significant challenges in maintaining healthcare quality and accessibility for its rapidly growing elderly population. This study extends the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by integrating health empowerment to examine its influence on digital healthcare device adoption among Korean older adults. Specifically, this study aims to investigate how health empowerment is associated with perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, and how these perceptions subsequently relate to attitude and intention to use digital healthcare devices. <b>Methods:</b> Data were collected from 342 Korean older adults. The analysis followed Anderson and Gerbing’s two-stage approach, utilizing structural equation modeling to first evaluate the measurement model and subsequently examine the hypothetical path sequences across health empowerment, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude, and behavioral intention. <b>Results:</b> The measurement model demonstrated satisfactory fit. Path analysis revealed that health empowerment significantly predicted both perceived usefulness (<i>β</i> = 0.58) and perceived ease of use (<i>β</i> = 0.43). Both perceived usefulness (<i>β</i> = 0.58) and perceived ease of use (<i>β</i> = 0.14) were significantly associated with attitude, which in turn was significantly associated with behavioral intention (<i>β</i> = 0.77). The direct path from perceived usefulness to behavioral intention was not statistically significant. Overall, the model explained 63% of the variance in intention to use, which is generally considered strong explanatory power. <b>Conclusions:</b> Integrating empowerment into the TAM framework highlights the significance of autonomy and self-efficacy in the adoption process. The findings suggest that empowerment plays an important role in shaping older adults’ perceptions of digital health technologies and their intention to adopt such devices, providing a conceptual basis for developing empowerment-driven strategies to facilitate the integration of digital health technologies among ageing populations.
KW  - Health empowerment; digital health technology; extended technology acceptance model; ageing population

DO  - 10.32604/ijmhp.2026.078956