Abstract
Due to the high perceived risk, it is critical to foster users’ initial trust in the promotion of mobile online health community (MOHC) adoption. The present study focused on the role of two different trust elements and examined the initial trust building process based on elaboration likelihood model and trust transfer theory. The results indicated that initial trust in MOHC context was composed of two interrelated components: health service provider (doctor) and underlying technology (MOHC platform). Especially, the initial trust in MOHC platform exerted greater effects on adopting intention. Both performance-based cue (doctors’ information quality and interaction quality) and transfer-based cue (trust in the offline doctors’ health service) positively shaped the initial trust in doctor. Meanwhile, only the performance-based cue (MOHC platform’s information quality and service quality) has significant positive association with initial trust in MOHC platform. However, interpersonal recommend is insignificantly related to the initial trust in doctor. Trust in the mobile internet service is insignificantly related to the initial trust in MOHC platform.
Highlights
Mobile online health community (MOHC) reshapes the traditional health information acquisition mode
Our work shows that initial trust in both provider characteristics and technology characteristics (MOHC platform) are the two main elements for the forming of initial trust in MOHC
The findings suggest that MOHC managers should establish users’ initial trust towards both doctor and platform for the promoting of MOHC adoption and usage
Summary
Mobile online health community (MOHC) reshapes the traditional health information acquisition mode. MOHC expands offline medical services to online and provides professional medical health consultation, which guide patients to choose a doctor more accurately and reduce blindness [1]. It helps users to access medical consultation service anytime and anywhere without the limitation of time and space. Despite MOHC providing great convenience to users, its penetration and adoption is relatively low [2,3,4]. A case study on “Hao Daifu Zaixian”, a well-known and representative MOHC platform in China, indicated that less than 1% visitors have used the mobile medical health service [1]. The lower adopting rates hinder the diffusion of the MOHC, which is a disadvantage in solving the common people’s medical treatment difficulty and optimizing medical resources distribution
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