Developing a measure of engagement with telehealth systems: The mHealth Technology Engagement Index

Introduction: Telehealth systems and mobile health (mHealth) devices allow for the exchange of both physical and mental healthcare data, as well as information from a patient to a practitioner, or care recipient to caregiver; but there has been little research on why users are motivated to engage with telehealth systems. Given this, we sought to create a measure that satisfactorily assesses human motivation to use telehealth devices. Methods: 532 survey responses were used in an exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, which tested and retested the feasibility of this new measure. Convergent and divergent validity analyses indicated that the mHealth Technology Engagement Index (mTEI) is a unique measure of motivation. Results: The results indicated that autonomy, competence, relatedness, goal attainment, and goal setting underpin motivation to use telehealth systems. Discussion: The mTEI shows promise in indexing human motivation to use telehealth technologies. We also discuss the importance of developing measurement tools based on theory and how practitioners can best utilize the mTEI.