Abstract
BackgroundOnline health communities (OHCs), with a wealth of multi-source information exchange, have provided a convenient way for people with diabetes to actively participate in their self-management and have been widely used. Information exchange assists people with diabetes with health-related decisions to actively engage in their care, and reduce the occurrence of potential complications of diabetes. However, there has been relatively little research on the information exchange behaviors and their effect on health in professional online medical platforms—OHCs.ObjectiveUsing a social exchange theory, this study focuses on two sources of information (doctors and people with diabetes) to investigate information exchange behaviors and consequences. Moreover, we also examine moderating effects of information price as patients need to pay prices for consulting with doctors to obtain medical information on OHCs.MethodsBy using the Python program, a rich dataset contained 22,746 doctor-patient dialogues from December 2017 to December 2018 is collected from the biggest OHC in China. Then the logistic and ordinal regression models are used to get empirical results.ResultsWe found that first information sharing from doctors and other people with diabetes can promote their information sharing behavior. Second, the moderating effects of information price are heterogeneous and change with the exchange participants. Third, rich information exchange supports self-management of people with diabetes and improves their health status.ConclusionThis study is among the first that tests the information exchange behavior and consequence for diabetes in OHCs and examines the moderating effects of the information price. The present study produces several insights, which have implications for social exchange, patient behavior, online health communities, and information technology in diabetes self-management literature.
Highlights
Online health communities (OHCs), with a wealth of multi-source information exchange, have provided a convenient way for people with diabetes to actively participate in their self-management and have been widely used
H3b: Information price negatively moderates the relationship between information sharing from other diabetic patients and a diabetic patient’s information sharing behavior in OHCs
From the results of the health status of people with diabetes who have participated in information exchange in Table 3, we found that people with diabetes who have received information sharing from the doctor (β = 0.009, p < 0.001) and information sharing from other diabetic patients (β = 0.018, p < 0.003) have a better health status
Summary
Online health communities (OHCs), with a wealth of multi-source information exchange, have provided a convenient way for people with diabetes to actively participate in their self-management and have been widely used. Information exchange assists people with diabetes with health-related decisions to actively engage in their care, and reduce the occurrence of potential complications of diabetes. There has been relatively little research on the information exchange behaviors and their effect on health in professional online medical platforms—OHCs. Diabetes is one of the major chronic non-communicable diseases in the world [1]. With a wealth of multi-source information exchange, have provided a convenient way for diabetes to access information and have been widely used
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