The Effect of Personal Innovativeness on Digital Therapeutics Acceptance: An Italian Empirical Study

Digital transformation is revolutionizing various sectors, including healthcare, by integrating digital technologies such as AI, IoT, and cloud computing in products and processes. This chapter is focused on a new digital health solution, “Digital Therapeutics”: a software implemented in different products, with the aim of providing medical interventions with proven therapeutic benefits. In particular, the goal of this chapter is to understand the intention to use “Digital Therapeutics” among Italians exploring the role of a variable defined “personal innovativeness” on it. Italian Government does not permit to prescribe and pay back the use of Digital Therapeutics, yet. The moderating effects of Digital Self-Efficacy and Health Belief are also investigated to understand if there is a possibility to increase the level of intention to use, investing in those variables. The authors, investigating the Italians’ intentional behavior through the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, expect that personal innovativeness positively influences the intention to use and that this correlation is moderated by Digital Self-Efficacy and Health Belief. Data will be collected through a questionnaire and analyzed through the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method. The findings are expected to extend the literature on innovation management and technology acceptance, also providing suggestions to Italian policy-makers and decision-makers of the healthcare system.