Acceptance of new medical technology may be influenced by social conditions and an individual’s background and particular situation. We studied this acceptance by hypothesizing that current and former COVID-19 patients would be more likely to accept an electrocardiogram (ECG) “patch” (attached to the chest) that allows continuous monitoring of the heart than individuals who did not have the disease and thus the respective experience. Currently infected COVID-19 patients, individuals who had recovered from COVID-19, and a control group were recruited online through Facebook (and Instagram) and through general practitioners (GPs). Demographic information and questions tailored to the problem were collected via an online questionnaire. An online survey was chosen in part because of the pandemic conditions, and Facebook was chosen because of the widespread discussions of health topics on that platform. The results confirmed the central hypothesis that people who had experienced a disease are more willing to accept new medical technologies and showed that curiosity about new technologies and willingness to use them were significantly higher in the two groups currently or previously affected by COVID-19, whereas fears of being “monitored” (in the sense of surveillance) were significantly higher among people who had not experienced the disease and threat. Experiencing a serious disease (“patient experience”) promotes acceptance of new medical technologies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.