Nurses' acceptance of handheld computers

Abstract

Information technology adoption has been studied extensively and PDA usage patterns have been examined in many user groups. However, no attempts have been made to investigate the factors that affect nurses' decisions to use PDAs in their daily clinical practice. Thus, the primary aim of this study was to examine nurses' IT adoption behaviors by studying factors that affect nurses' decisions to use or not use PDAs in their practice. This study used a descriptive design that employed a web survey to answer the study's research questions. The questionnaire was made available from PDA survey web site (http://www.pda-survey.com) from November 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005. Nurses were eligible to participate if they: (1) were age 18 years or older, (2) knew what a PDA is, and (3) able to use the Internet to submit the survey. A total of 313 responses were received during the data collection period. Among those responses, 219 were retained for the analyses (30 responses were incomplete; 57 were non-PDA users; 7 were duplicate submissions). The response rate for the study was 24.1%. Results from testing the specific relationships between variables revealed that: (1) perceived organizational support, task characteristics, individual characteristics and technology characteristics are all significant factors enhancing nurses' perception of PDAs usefulness; (2) individual characteristics and Technology characteristics are found to be significant factors affecting nurses' perception of PDAs ease of use; (3) nurses who perceived PDAs to be easy to use or useful tend to have more positive attitudes toward PDAs; (4) nurses who use other technologies to perform their tasks at work are less likely to use a PDA; (5) nurses' positive toward PDAs will enhance their acceptance of PDA. The findings can provide healthcare organizations with a useful tool to better understand nurses' technology behaviors to provide necessary support for the effective implementation of PDAs in various clinical settings. We recommend continued investigation into the nurses' acceptance of PDA technology using the random sampling method with a larger sample size.