Pharmacists' attitudes and intention to adopt telemedicine: Integrating the market-orientation paradigm and the UTAUT

The severe impact of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus on healthcare systems caused a sharp increase in pa tients’ demand for telemedicine. Despite this acceleration, and while telemedicine is usually associated with the transition to a market-oriented paradigm in healthcare, available studies have not examined to what extent health professionals’ attitudes and intention to adopt telemedicine are shaped by customers’ demand. This study addressed this gap by proposing a model that combines the market-orientation paradigm with the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to explain pharmacists’ attitudes toward telemedicine and its adoption. The findings from a survey of 202 pharmacists revealed that market orientation is positively associated with performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence but negatively related to facilitating conditions. In turn, performance expectancy, effort expectancy and facilitating conditions affect the intention to adopt telemedicine. These findings have implications for the network of actors involved in the provision of telemedicine services.