Impact of online physician service quality on patients' adoption behavior across different stages: An elaboration likelihood perspective

Abstract

Although online health communities (OHCs) serve as a convenient and important platform for patients to access professional services, limited knowledge is available on patients' adoption behavior of physician services in OHCs across different stages, that is, the first adoption and post-adoption stages. This study aims to understand (1) what are the factors influencing physician service adoption in OHCs and (2) how do the factors differ in influencing physician service adoption across the two stages. Based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study identifies information quality and interaction quality as central cues and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) as peripheral cue in affecting physician service adoption, and proposes comparative hypotheses regarding the relative importance between the central and peripheral cues across the first adoption and post-adoption stages. By using secondary data collected from a popular Chinese OHC, and applying negative binomial regression models and path comparison method, we found that interaction quality with a physician and his/her eWOM positively influence the first adoption of physician services, and the eWOM is the determination factor across both the first adoption and post-adoption stages. In addition, the central cue interaction quality has a stronger impact on the first adoption of physician services than on the post-adoption; the peripheral cue eWOM has a stronger impact on the post-adoption of physician services than on the first adoption. Our findings offer nuanced theoretical insights on patients' decision-making processes by adopting physician services and practical guidance for service providers and e-Health websites.