Discriminant Validity of Factors for Evaluating Performance of eHealth Information Systems

Evaluating eHealth Information Systems (IS) performance is considered a key activity to provide evidence for the decision-making process for both available and future eHealth initiatives in both developed and developing economies. Evaluation of the performance of eHealth IS requires identification of factors for evaluating these systems. In the study conducted in 2019–2020, a number of factors/constructs for evaluation of eHealth ISs were identified, and a survey was used to collect data about them and analyze it. Better still, a thorough reliability check was made on the seven major factors that were identified. However, discriminant validity was required to confirm that constructs that are hypothesized to be unrelated to one another are indeed unrelated. In this regard, the Fornell and Larcker criterion and the heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) were used to establish construct discriminant validity. As a result, a comparison of results was made. Results obtained using the Fornell and Larcker criterion indicated that service and system quality constructs failed to meet the requirement of the criterion for establishing the discriminant validity of a construct. A comparison with the square root of the average variance extracted from each construct with the correlation values was then made. The HTMT values between the constructs were below 0.9; hence, discriminant validity was established, thus adoption for further analysis. The results established a basis for designing an approach for evaluating the performance of eHealth IS in a developing economy’s context.