What Drives Continued Use of Telemedicine in Saudi Arabia? A Model of Confirmation, Usefulness, Social Influence, and Risk

HRMARS - Telemedicine has emerged as a vital component of healthcare delivery, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where its adoption was significantly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite widespread adoption, understanding the factors driving continued use of telemedicine applications remains critical to ensuring their long-term sustainability. This study examines the effects of confirmation (CF), perceived risk (PR), perceived usefulness (PU), and social influence (SINF) on users’ intention to continue using the Sehhaty telemedicine application in Saudi Arabia. A quantitative research design was employed, utilizing stratified random sampling to ensure representativeness across population subgroups. Data were collected from 397 telemedicine users and analyzed using SPSS for descriptive analysis and SmartPLS for Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicate that confirmation and social influence have significant positive effects on continuance intention, with social influence emerging as the strongest predictor. Perceived usefulness also exhibits a positive, albeit weaker, significant effect on intention, whereas perceived risk does not significantly influence continued use. The model explains a substantial proportion of variance in continuance intention, highlighting the robustness of the proposed framework. These results underscore the importance of social and contextual factors in sustaining telemedicine use within government-led digital health ecosystems and offer practical implications for healthcare policymakers and platform developers seeking to enhance long-term user engagement with national telemedicine services.