Study On The Impact Of Patient Information Behavior In Online Health Communities On Patient Compliance

Online health communities(OHCs),such as Chunyuyisheng,Haodaifu,and Dingxiangyuan,can provide patients with platforms to communicate with physicians and other patients,and are convenient,quick,and up-to-date,and can break the limititaion of place and time.OHCs can help alleviate hospital congestions,improve the utilization of medical resources and relieve medical resource shortages to a certain extent.Information quality is a vital problem in OHCs that are the Internet platform.In addition,the level of patients’ ability to obtain information and distinguish information quality is uneven,resulting in the fact that patients’ perceived information quality and actual information quality are sometimes different,thus affecting physician-patient relationship,treatment efficiency,and health outcomes.In consideration of OHCs’advantages and its irreversible development,especially their unique activity and important role during the COVID-19 outbreakTo help physicians and OHCs’ service providers to understand and guide patient information behaviors in OHCs more deeply and comprehensively,so as to promote OHCs to assist offline treatment and improve the treatment efficiency,on the basis of the key project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China "Big Data Driven Innovation and Management of Intelligent Healthcare"(71532002),this study intends to examine the impact of patient information behavior(patient information seeking and sharing behavior,and physician-patient interaction behavior)in OHCs on patient compliance,and to initially propose the information recommendation algorithm of OHCs for the purpose of improving patient compliance and treatment efficiency.The main content of this study is as follows:(1)Study on influencing factors of patient information behavior in OHCsIt is necessary to identify the perspectives before exploring the impact of patient information behavior in OHCs on patient compliance.The first part of this study mainly analyzes the patients’ demands for information in OHCs and examines user social relationships,and then analyzes the influencing factors of patient information behavior Results indicate that influencing factors of patient information behavior in OHCs include demographic factors,risk preference,eHealth literacy,patient activation,perceived social support,perceived social presence,perceived responsiveness,reciprocity of OHCs,and information quality.Therefore,this study can explore the impact of patient information behavior in OHCs on patient compliance from these perspectives.(2)Impact of patient information behavior in OHCs on patient compliance Based on the results of(1),this study establishes the theoretical framework,constructs the research models and proposes hypotheses to explore the impact of patient information behavior in OHCs on patient compliance by empirical analysis,thereby clarifying how to guiding patient information behavior in OHCs to improve patient compliance and treatment efficiency.Results reveal that patients with different regulatory foci will seek health information related to emerging treatments and mature treatments,respectively,which has positive impacts on patient compliance through the mediations of patients’perceived information quality and information satisfaction.Patient activation and eHealth literacy can positively impact patient compliance through the mediating effect of patient information seeking behavior.the way and effectiveness of patient seeking health information in OHCs have positive effects on patient compliance through the mediations of patients’ perceived social support,social presence and responsiveness from OHCs and other users.Physician-patient information interaction behavior in OHCs positively impacts patient compliance through mediations of patients’ perceived quality of Internet health information,decision-making preference and physician-patient concordance.Patient health information seeking and communication frequency with physicians in OHCs positively impact patient compliance through the mediations of patients’perceived affective empathy and cognitive empathy.In OHCs,reciprocity,patients’ perceived social support,and responsiveness can directly and positively impact patient information sharing behavior,and patient information sharing behavior has positive impacts on patient compliance through the mediating effects of patients’self-efficacy,sense of self-worth,and perceived information asymmetry with physicians.(3)Hybrid Information recommendation algorithm of OHCs based on user portrait and collaborative filteringFirst,this study constructs the user interest model on the basis of patients’information demand,social networks,information sharing intention and behavior preference.and then constructs user portrait and labels patient information,showing individual attributes,behavioral characteristics and information interests.Last,this study calculates the weighted similarity and estimated rating by combing collaborative filtering algorithm,in order to generate information recommendation results.On the one hand,the hybrid recommendation algorithm avoids the problem of cold start and data sparsity caused by using collaborative filtering alone.On the other hand,this information recommendation algorithm integrates the user portrait,and considers user information behavior characteristics and information interests,so as to guide patient information behavior in OHCs through recommending information to improve patient compliance.The innovations of this study contain three aspects:(1)Explores how to promote OHCs to assist offline treatment from the perspective of patient compliance;(2)Applies the UTAUT to the study of patient information behavior in OHCs;(3)Proposes an information recommendation algorithm for the purpose of improving patient compliance and treatment efficiency.This study has theoretical contributions to the study on patient information behavior,patient compliance,and OHCs’information recommendation algorithm,provides new ideas for the application of social exchange theory,self-determination theory and regulatory focus theory in the field of health care,and provides reference for the study on OHCs’information recommendation algorithm.In addition,this study helps physicians and OHCs’ service providers to understand patients’information demands and behavior characteristics deeply,and then guide patient information behaviors in OHCs,so as to provide suggestions for promoting the OHCs to assist offline treatment.