Docta Complutense
Open Access Institutional Repository of the Complutense University of Madrid, that compiles scientific production to promote the visibility and impact of Complutense research.
With the collaboration of the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).
Recent Submissions
Telemedicine apps and their influence on the tourism industry: A qualitative study
(International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, 2025) Carrera Anaya, Antonio; Recuero Virto, Nuria
Purpose
In spite of increasing interest in telemedicine, its impact on tourism remains underexplored. This study aims to analyse how telemedicine apps improve health-care access for tourists, emphasizing usability, benefits, challenges and safety perceptions while identifying integration barriers and opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative approach using grounded theory to develop a structured understanding of telemedicine’s role in tourism. Data collection involved semi-structured in-depth interviews, participant observation and document review with 10 experts from medicine, tourism, app development, consumer advocacy and academia recruited through theoretical sampling. The analysis used ATLAS.ti software with open, axial and selective coding to generate themes and construct a theoretical framework.
Findings
Telemedicine apps, primarily designed for medical management, also enhance tourist safety. However, usability challenges for older users and poor integration with tourism services hinder their adoption. Experts emphasized the importance of accessibility and user-friendly design, while concerns about medical data security were minimal.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are based on a small sample size of experts. Future studies could broaden the participant sample and include actual tourists to gain deeper insights.
Practical implications
Tourism providers should partner with telemedicine developers to enhance tourist safety. Training older users will improve adoption rates.
Social implications
Integrating telemedicine into tourism can improve access to health care, reduce travel-related health risks and promote proactive health management among tourists, benefiting public health. However, the widespread adoption of telemedicine in tourism requires alignment with existing data protection regulations such as the GDPR in Europe and the HIPAA in the USA.
Originality/value
This research provides novel insights into the connection of telemedicine and tourism, highlighting how telemedicine apps can enhance tourist safety and convenience. By integrating expert perspectives, the study offers practical recommendations for tourism stakeholders and app developers to foster innovation and adoption in both sectors.
Feature analysis of neuter gender in Spanish and Asturian languages
(Syntactic Geolectal Variation : Traditional approaches, current challenges and new tools, 2021) Gil Laforga, Irene; Gutiérrez Rodríguez, María Edita; Cerrudo Aguilar, Alba; Gallego Bartolomé, Ángel Jesús; Roca Urgell, Francesc
ABSTRACT: It is traditionally considered that there are three values for pronominal gender (masculine, feminine, neuter). In this chapter, we explore the idea that there are no neuter pronouns in Spanish, as neuter doesn’t show agreement effects. Then we focus on mass neuter agreement, a phenomenon that takes place in an area of Central and Northern Peninsular Spanish. After studying the kind of syntactic information that can be obtained from syntactic atlases, we present an overview of the phenomenon from a purely descriptive point of view. We finally focus on demonstratives and we claim that the Asturian demonstrative «esto» with a mass noun antecedent is a determiner that takes an uncountable null noun as its complement, whose features are contextually recovered.
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