Telehealth has proven beneficial to some patients but others have declined it or quickly abandoned it. In part, this is due to a failure to consider patients´ beliefs. To address this, and move towards being able to predict who will receive benefit, a Telehealth Acceptance Model (ThAM) needs to be established and validated. As a starting point, currently available models such as the Technology Acceptance Model or Innovation Acceptance Model, which predict users´ acceptance of new information technologies will need to be investigated alongside models that have been shown to be predictive of health behaviour (e.g., Theory of Planned Behaviour). It is believed that a validated ThAM will aid telehealth deployment and lead to the development of personalised telehealth solutions for the benefit of a larger percentage of the population. You will work alongside major regional deployments, thus giving access to a large number of people and different contexts.
This studentship needs to achieve four key tasks:
1.      Systematic review of acceptance in telehealth from the end user (patient) perspective
2.      Interview end users to validate the findings of the systematic review
3.      Develop the ThAM
4.      Survey end users over a 12-month period in a panel study to validate the ThAM

Scholarship Application Deadline: 4 May 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application