Abstract
Introduction: Online mental health communities may provide new opportunities for rehabilitation for people with mental illness, so it is important to understand the factors that influence the continued use of online mental health communities by people with mental illness. Methods: From the perspective of empowerment, based on the theory of health self-efficacy and expectation confirmation, this study explored the mediating role of health self-efficacy and expectation confirmation in the empowerment process of patients in online mental health communities and users’ intention to continue using online mental health communities. To verify this model, we obtained 272 valid questionnaires. The SmartPLS 3.0 software was selected for model construction and empirical analysis. Results: Health self-efficacy completely mediates the relationship between the empowerment process (i.e., emotional support, information support, helping others and sharing experiences) and users’ intention to continue using an online mental health community. Expectation confirmation partially mediates the relationship between the empowerment process (i.e., information support and finding recognition) and users’ intention to continue using an online mental health community. Conclusion: The empowerment process is the main predictor of user health self-efficacy and expectation confirmation. This study has certain theoretical and practical significance for online mental health community research.
Highlights
Online mental health communities may provide new opportunities for rehabilitation for people with mental illness, so it is important to understand the factors that influence the continued use of online mental health communities by people with mental illness
Few relevant studies have been carried out, so based on previous studies on health information systems and empowerment theory, this study proposes the first research question: How do the processes involved in patient empowerment in online mental health communities affect patient health self-efficacy? How does the user’s health self-efficacy affect the user’s intention to continue using online mental health communities?
The results showed that information support (β = 0.27, p < 0.001) and finding recognition (β = 0.243, p < 0.001) had a positive effect on expectation confirmation
Summary
Online mental health communities may provide new opportunities for rehabilitation for people with mental illness, so it is important to understand the factors that influence the continued use of online mental health communities by people with mental illness. Methods: From the perspective of empowerment, based on the theory of health self-efficacy and expectation confirmation, this study explored the mediating role of health self-efficacy and expectation confirmation in the empowerment process of patients in online mental health communities and users’ intention to continue using online mental health communities. To verify this model, we obtained 272 valid questionnaires. Results: Health self-efficacy completely mediates the relationship between the empowerment process (i.e., emotional support, information support, helping others and sharing experiences) and users’ intention to continue using an online mental health community. These communities empower users to vent their emotions, share their experiences, obtain recognition, and help others [2,3,4]
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