Background: The clinical application of voice technology provides novel opportunities in the field of telehealth. However, patients' readiness for this solution has not been investigated among patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVD).
Objective: This paper aims to evaluate patients' anticipated experiences regarding telemedicine, including voice conversational agents combined with provider-driven support delivered by phone.
Methods: A cross-sectional study enrolled patients with chronic CVD who were surveyed using a validated investigator-designed questionnaire combining 19 questions (eg, demographic data, medical history, preferences for using telehealth services). Prior to the survey, respondents were educated on the telemedicine services presented in the questionnaire while being assisted by a medical doctor. Responses were then collected and analyzed, and multivariate logistic regression was used to identify predictors of willingness to use voice technology.
Results: In total, 249 patients (mean age 65.3, SD 13.8 years; 158 [63.5%] men) completed the questionnaire, which showed good repeatability in the validation procedure. Of the 249 total participants, 209 (83.9%) reported high readiness to receive services allowing for remote contact with a cardiologist (176/249, 70.7%) and telemonitoring of vital signs (168/249, 67.5%). The voice conversational agents combined with provider-driven support delivered by phone were shown to be highly anticipated by patients with CVD. The readiness to use telehealth was statistically higher in people with previous difficulties accessing health care (OR 2.920, 95% CI 1.377-6.192) and was most frequent in city residents and individuals reporting a higher education level. The age and sex of the respondents did not impact the intention to use voice technology (P=.20 and P=.50, respectively).
Conclusions: Patients with cardiovascular diseases, including both younger and older individuals, declared high readiness for voice technology.
Keywords: acceptance; cardiovascular diseases; chatbot; smart speaker; telehealth; voice technology.
©Małgorzata Kowalska, Aleksandra Gładyś, Barbara Kalańska-Łukasik, Monika Gruz-Kwapisz, Wojciech Wojakowski, Tomasz Jadczyk. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 17.12.2020.