Acceptance of telemedicine technology among physicians: A systematic review

Background: Telemedicine is vital technology to deliver health services at a distance by health professionals,
especially physicians, who are key players in Community health. Given the important role of telemedicine in
improving health care, especially in the COVID-19 epidemic, an examination of behavioral barriers and not using
this technology among physicians can be important.
Objectives: The aim of our systematic review is to identify the behavioral factors influencing the acceptance of
telemedicine technology among physicians in different contexts.
Methods: A literature search was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines. The search was conducted
without any time limitations up to the Dec of 2020 in Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and Embase scientific
databases; by applying keywords. The article selection was made based on inclusion (telemedicine among
physicians, using the acceptance behavioral theories), and exclusion (physicians not the end-users of technology,
it is not about acceptance of technology) criteria by two authors independently. Data was gathered using a data
extraction form, and the results were reported in tables and figures based on the study objectives.
Results: From all the retrieved studies, 37 articles were included based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The
United States and Spain have the most conducted studies about the acceptance of telemedicine from the phy-
sicians’ point of view. The study results showed that the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and extended
TAM model have the highest frequency. The main factors affecting the acceptance and use of telemedicine were
perceived usefulness, attitude to use, compatibility, perceived ease of use, self-efficacy, subjective norms,
perceived behavioral control, and facilitating condition.
Conclusions: Identifying the most important factors that affect the acceptance of telemedicine from physicians’
perspectives, as a key player in telemedicine projects, can help managers and policymakers make the right de-
cisions about implementation of telemedicine successfully, especially in the initial phases. Future studies can also
evaluate the aggregation of factors identified in this paper.