Abstract
With the development of telemedicine and e-health, usage of online health communities has grown, with such communities now representing convenient sources of information for patients who have geographical and temporal constraints regarding visiting physical health-care institutions. Many previous studies have examined patient–provider communication and health-care service delivery in online health communities; however, there is a dearth of research exploring the relationship between patients' level of self-disclosure and the establishment of patients' trust in physicians. Consequently, this study aims to explore how patients' self-disclosure affects the establishment of patients' trust in physicians. “Good Doctor,” which is a China-based online health community, was used as a data source, and a computer program was developed to download data for patient–physician communication on this community. Then, data for communications between 1,537 physicians and 63,141 patients were obtained. Ultimately, an empirical model was built to test our hypotheses. The results showed that patients' self-disclosure positively influences their establishment of trust in physicians. Further, physicians' provision of social support to patients showed a complete mediating effect on the relationship between patients' self-disclosure and patients' establishment of trust in physicians. Finally, evidence of “hope-for-help” motivation in patients' messages weakened the effect of patients' self-disclosure when physicians' social support was text-based, but strengthened it when physicians' social support was voice-based.
Highlights
With the continuing development of health information technology [1] and telemedicine, online health communities (OHCs), such as Good Doctor and Chunyu Doctor, are becoming increasingly popular online platforms through which patients and physicians can communicate and exchange information [2,3,4,5,6]
Dialogue on OHCs occurs through computer-mediated communication (CMC), and combining CMC with non-tangible diagnoses may lead to patients having less trust in physicians when compared to face-to-face communication and offline diagnoses
Good Doctor, which was created in 2006, is currently the largest e-health platform; at present, it features over 300 departments, covering over 3,000 diseases
Summary
With the continuing development of health information technology [1] and telemedicine, online health communities (OHCs), such as Good Doctor (haodf.com) and Chunyu Doctor (chunyuyisheng.com), are becoming increasingly popular online platforms through which patients and physicians can communicate and exchange information [2,3,4,5,6]. OHCs are extremely convenient for patients who have geographical and temporal constraints regarding physically contacting health-care professionals [8]. The widespread use of OHC facilitates physician– patient communication and improves the accessibility of healthcare services. Face-to-face communication, OHCs represent extremely convenient resources through which patients can investigate diseases and symptoms. On OHCs, patients’ level of self-disclosure is essential for helping the physicians make appropriate medical decisions. Dialogue on OHCs occurs through computer-mediated communication (CMC), and combining CMC with non-tangible (i.e., non-face-to-face) diagnoses may lead to patients having less trust in physicians when compared to face-to-face communication and offline diagnoses. Thereby, on OHCs, how to improve the patientphysician trust based on the patients’ self-disclosure is important to the patients and the physicians
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
