Objectives: This project focuses on how patients respond to wearable biomedical sensors, since patient acceptance of this type of monitoring technology is essential for enhancing the quality of the data being measured. There is a lack of validated questionnaires measuring patient acceptance of telemedical solutions, and little information is known of how patients evaluate the use of wearable sensors.
Methods: In information systems research, surveys are commonly used to evaluate the user satisfaction of software programs. Based on this tradition and adding measures of patient satisfaction and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), a Sensor Acceptance Model is developed. The model is made operational using two questionnaires developed for measuring the patients' perceived acceptance of wearable sensors.
Results: The model is tested with 11 patients using a newly developed wearable ECG sensor, and with 25 patients in a reference group using a traditional "Holter Recorder". Construct validity is evaluated by confirmatory factor analysis, and internal consistency is calculated using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Sensor Acceptance Index (SAI) is calculated for each patient, showing reasonable dependencies and variance in scores.
Conclusions: This study attempts to identify patients' acceptance of wearable sensors, describing a user acceptance model. Understanding the patients' behavior and motivation represents a step forward in designing suitable technical solutions, and calculations of SAI can, hopefully, be used to compare different wearable sensor solutions. However, this instrument needs more extensive testing with a broader sample size, with different types of sensors and by explorative follow-up interviews.