Bing Wu
Patient Continued Use of Online Health Care Communities: Web Mining of Patient-Doctor Communication
Tongji University
practice online health communities passed adoption stage reached diffusion phase development phase patients equipped knowledge regarding issues involved health care capable switching different communities maximize online health community activities online health communities employ doctors answer patient questions high quality online health communities likely acknowledged patients therefore factors motivate patients maintain ongoing relationships online health communities must addressed however received limited scholarly attentionthe purpose study identify factors drive patients continue use online health communities doctorpatient communication occurs achieved integrating information system success model online health community featuresa web spider used download extract data one authoritative chinese online health communities communication occurs doctors patients time span analyzed study january 2017 march 2017 sample 469 valid anonymous patients 9667 posts obtained equivalent 469 respondents survey research combination web mining structural equation modeling conducted test research hypothesesthe results show research framework integrating information system success model online health community features contributes understanding factors drive patients relationships online health communities primary findings follows 1 perceived usefulness found significantly determined three exogenous variables ie social support information quality service quality r2088 variables explain 876 variance perceived usefulness online health communities 2 similarly patient satisfaction found significantly determined three variables listed r2069 variables explain 693 variance seen patient satisfaction 3 continuance use dependent variable significantly influenced perceived usefulness patient satisfaction r2093 combined effects perceived usefulness patient satisfaction explain 934 variance seen continuance use 4 unexpectedly individual literacy influence perceived usefulness satisfaction patients using online health communitiesfirst study contributes existing literature continuance use online health communities using empirical approach second appropriate metric developed assess constructs related proposed research model additionally web spider enabled us acquire objective data relatively easily frequently thereby overcoming major limitation survey techniques