Abstract
Online medical consultation has become increasingly popular, while little is known about what features of such service can impact users’ emotions and behaviours. This study looked into the language features of online text-based medical consultation. Specifically, the aim of this paper was to examine the effects of vague language (i.e., non-specific, imprecise language) on health-related uncertainty, and its affective and behavioural consequences, while considering individual differences in regulatory focus. A between-subject (vague language vs. precise language vs. control condition) web-based experiment was conducted (N = 249), where participants in the experimental groups read virtual doctor-patient conversations where the doctor used either vague or precise language. Results showed that vague language induced more uncertainty than precise language (p = .010); such uncertainty was appraised as a danger (r = .18, p = .004) but not an opportunity (r = .01, p = .932), and subsequently led to negative emotions (r = .45, p < .001). No effects were found on behavioural outcomes, and there was no moderation from regulatory focus. The results suggest that online healthcare providers should refrain from using vague language in communication with patients to avoid eliciting uncertainty and subsequent negative feelings. Future research is needed to further examine the behavioural effects of uncertainty and explore factors that could foster the appraisal of opportunity.
Highlights
Online medical consultation has become increasingly popular, while little is known about what features of such service can impact users’ emotions and behaviours
In terms of positive responses, the results showed that uncertainty led to a decreasing level of positive affect through the appraisal of danger; no effect was found on positive behavioural responses
The notion that language use can have a profound impact on people may be informative to chatbot developers such that dialogues design should receive conscious attention, considering potential consequences. This was one of the first studies examining health-related uncertainty from the perspective of verbal properties and as such provides some insights into the effects of communication on uncertainty, and patients’ consequent emotions and behaviours
Summary
Online medical consultation has become increasingly popular, while little is known about what features of such service can impact users’ emotions and behaviours. Online text-based medical consultation, vague language, uncertainty, appraisal of danger, appraisal of opportunity, affective response, behavioural response. Online medical consultation was found promising in high patient satisfaction level in terms of access, cost, convenience, and empowerment (Albert et al, 2011; Lu et al, 2011) As a consequence, this service has been gaining increasing popularity. Among various modalities of online medical consultation, text-based services account for a significant part and have been adopted by numerous countries, e.g., Sweden (Umefjord et al, 2003), Greece (Labiris et al, 2002), Croatia (Klinar et al, 2011), and Iran (Deldar et al, 2011), and their verbal features are of particular interest to this study. According to a study reviewing diagnostic letters written by clinicians, nearly two-thirds of the letters contained vague
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