Social influence on the use of Clinical Decision Support Systems: Revisiting the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology by the fuzzy DEMATEL technique

The aim of study is to examine whether social influence affects medical professionals’ behavioral intention to use while introducing a new Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS). The series of Technology Acceptance Models (TAMs) have been widely applied to examine new technology acceptance by scholars; nevertheless, these models omit system diversity and the user’s profession. On the other hand, causal analysis greatly affects the efficiency of decision-making, and it is usually analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM); however, the method is often misapplied. This research applies the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique to explore the causal relationship between the significant Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) variables. Fuzzy concept is applied to illustrate human vague judgment. It is significant that, in contrary with UTAUT, this study found that social influence does not matter in the behavioral intention to use the CDSS for medical professionals.

► Social influence does not matter on the behavioral intention to use the CDSS.
► Fuzzy DEMATEL technique is applied to explore the causal relationship.
► This study proves the limitation of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT).
► Fuzzy DEMATEL addresses the vagueness of human judgments and approximate reason it.
► Fuzzy DEMATEL overcomes the abuse of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).