Impact of patients’ personality traits on digital health Adoption Strategies for family practices

Background: Various governments highlight the relevance of digitalization in family practices; however, still some adoption barriers persist due to an inadequate understanding of why patients engage in digital use cases. Different studies show that personality traits influence how individuals assess digital use cases. Nevertheless, the effect of personality has not yet been tested in a family practice setting, even though family doctors are in an optimal position to use these personality insights via an empathetic communication approach in their direct patient interaction.
Objective: This paper aims to assess the impact of different personality traits on patients’ technology acceptance and derive implications for Digital Health Adoption Strategies of family practices – hence, what family doctors need to consider when influencing a patient's decision to adopt a particular digital use case. Methods: After reviewing the literature regarding the impact of personality on technology acceptance, we combined two established UTAUT and Big-Five questionnaires in a web-based survey. Recruiting a large cross-sectional sample of adults living in Germany, we conducted regression analyses to determine the effect of personality and sociodemographics on technology acceptance of four digital use cases in family practices.
Results: Our sample of 1,880 participants indicated that sociodemographics explained technology acceptance better than personality traits. Specifically, digital literacy, age and frequency of doctor visits affected people's perception of different digital use cases while extraversion appeared as key personality trait in technology acceptance.
Conclusion: Family practices only need to consider personality traits selectively in developing Digital Health Adoption Strategies. Nevertheless, we argue that different patient personality profiles can guide family doctors in tailoring their communication while implementing digital use cases.