The impact of gamification on the patient's engagement in the online health community

Abstract

PurposeGamification has been widely implemented to improve user engagement in the online health community (OHC). While its effect on the physicians' engagement has recently been documented, whether and how gamification influences the patients' engagement in the OHC remains an untapped research area. The purpose of this study is to fill this dearth by encompassing the gamification strategy of Haodf.com, which awards the “Annual Physician” badges to the physicians, to analyze how this gamification approach motivates patients’ engagement in the OHC.Design/methodology/approachReal-world data are leveraged from the OHC. The Tobit model is employed for modeling the gamification-patient's engagement nexus in an OHC. Robust findings are obtained by incorporating different measures of a dependent variable, a set of control variables about the physician's characteristics and hospital's features, and alternative estimation techniques.FindingsThe results reveal that a patient's engagement in the OHC in the form of appointments and review-posting behavior is enhanced by the gamification strategy. Besides, the positive influence of gamification on the patient's engagement is further strengthened by the physician's professional capital. It is basically obtained that the gamification is an efficacious tool to accelerate not only the physicians' engagement but also of the patients in the OHC platform.Originality/valueThe study provides both theoretical and empirical discussion to enrich the understanding on how OHCs enhance patients' engagement by developing gamification techniques. The findings guide the practitioners of OHC to better understand the implications of their gamification design to optimize user engagement.