Application of the Extended Technology Acceptance Model in predicting pharmacists' intention to use personal digital assistants.

Objective: To evaluate pharmacists' behavioral intention to use personal digital assistants (PDAs) in their profession, by means of the Extended Technology Acceptance Model (ETAM).

Design: Prospective cross-sectional study.

Setting: Hospital and community pharmacies in Houston, TX, in 2004.

Participants: Convenience sample of 295 practicing pharmacists.

Intervention: A prevalidated survey containing 30 items, evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale (1, strongly disagree, to 5, strongly agree), which measured the ETAM variables.

Main Outcome Measures: Predictors of intention to use PDA for pharmacists owning the device.

Results: Among the surveyed population, 49% of pharmacists owned PDAs. Overall, the ETAM constructs showed fairly good reliability. Stepwise regression analysis showed that the ETAM explained 69% of the variance in intention to use PDAs for pharmacists owning the device. Result demonstrability (beta = 0.53), subjective norm (beta = 0.25), and voluntariness (beta = -0.10) were significant (P < 0.05) predictors of pharmacists' intention to use PDAs.

Conclusion: ETAM proved useful in predicting pharmacists' behavior in using PDAs. With improvements in technology, PDAs be an effective tool for pharmacists in providing better patient care.