| The aging population and changes in modern habits have made the health problems of Chinese residents more and more serious,and people’s needs for health management are becoming more and more diversified and urgent.However,medical resources in China can not meet people’s demands and even face the situation of uneven distribution.In order to relieve the difficulty of seeking medical treatment,the Chinese government strongly encourages the medical industry to upgrade and integrate with the development of the Internet.With the promotion of digital reform of enterprises,people begin to pay attention to online health communities.In addition,with the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020,people’s acceptance of online consultation has greatly increased.Internet healthcare has accelerated the pace of development.Online health communities gather thousands of doctors’ and integrate large number of information.The redundant information makes patients trouble when choosing online consultation services.Therefore,understanding how patients make decisions while processing information will help online health communities upgrade their service mechanisms and provide ideas for doctors to improve the quality of online consultation services.This paper takes Good Doctors Online(www.haodf.com)for example to explore the factors influencing patients’ decisions.The online consultation behavior of patients is divided into two stages,i.e.,to choose a doctor and service in the whole process respectively.The two sub-studies are as follows.First,based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response(S-O-R)theory,this paper constructed a structural equation model,collected 581 valid sample data through an online questionnaire.After the reliability and validity of the model was confirmed,we analyzed the path coefficients among the variables.It was found that doctor reputation,patient familiarity with the hospital,and platform objectivity all influence patients’ trust in the doctor,which in turn affects patients’ willingness to choose the doctor for consultation.Meanwhile,disease risk,as a factor that can differentiate patient groups,also influences patients’ psychological and external responses when they receive information about the above three external stimuli.Specifically,lower disease risk,lower the influence of external stimuli on patients’ decision-making.Second,based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model(ELM),this paper holds the view that patients process information through two routes.Considering disease risk and patients’ experience of an online consultation as personal motivation factors of information processing,logistic regression was used to investigate how the quality and price of the service affect patients’ choice of service.The study focuses on two types of online consultation services,i.e.,text consultation and telephone consultation,establishing an empirical model.After analyzing the data of 63,188 consultation records obtained from the website of Good Doctor Online,the results of the study are as follows.The service quality information generated by both doctors and patients has an impact on patients’ service mode selection behavior through the central way,and the higher the service quality conveyed from the information,the more patients tend to choose telephone consultation service.The price of service information works through the peripheral way,patients are more likely to choose the generally lower-priced text consultation service.Disease risk has a positive moderating effect on the service quality and a negative moderating effect on the service price.Consultation experience weakens the effect of patient-generated information of service quality information and enhances the effect of service price,but there was no significant modifying effect on physician-generated information.This paper has its innovation.First of all,it lies in the overall view of the whole process of patients’ online consultation,which divides patients’ online consultation behavior into two stages: doctor selection and service choice.Secondly,although this paper studies the patient’s behavior in the online environment,it pays attention to the influence of factors in the offline environment of patients as well as the online ones,integrating secondary data and questionnaire data to analyze the influence of external stimulation on patients’ decision and its internal mechanism.Finally,the variables are measured from the perspectives of both doctors and patients,analyzing the impact of service quality on patients’ decision from different perspectives.Theoretically,this paper enriches the study of patient behavior in the online environment.After reading previous literature about the direct influencing factors of patients’ choice behavior online,based on S-O-R theory,this paper further explores the influence mechanism of these factors mediated by trust.And then the study focuses on patients’ decision-making behavior when facing different online consultation services,which more completely describes the whole process of patients’ online consultation behavior.Practically,this paper provides suggestions for patients,doctors and online consultation platforms according to the research results.For online consultation platforms,this paper can help them to optimize their service models,create open and smooth channels for doctor-patient communication online,and enhance the stickiness and activeness of doctors and patients users.For doctors,this paper will help them better build their personal homepages,provide more personalized and humanized services,and establish a harmonious doctor-patient relationship.This study is an inspiration to optimize the allocation of domestic medical resources and realize the comprehensive promotion of the construction of a healthy China. |
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