Predictors of Patients' Intention to Interact With Doctors in Web-Based Health Communities in China: Cross-Sectional Study

The Impact of Popular Science Articles by Physicians on Their Performance on Online Medical Platforms

The public demand for popular science knowledge regarding health is increasing, and physicians' popular science practices on online medical platforms are becoming frequent. Few studies have been conducted to address the relationship between specific characteristics of popular science articles by physicians and their performance. This study explored the impact of the characteristics of popular science articles on physicians' performance based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) from the central path (topic focus and readability) and the peripheral path (form diversity). Data on four diseases, namely, lung cancer, brain hemorrhage, hypertension, and depression, were collected from an online medical platform, resulting in relevant personal data from 1295 doctors and their published popular science articles. Subsequently, the independent variables were quantified using thematic analysis and formula calculation, and the research model and hypotheses proposed in this paper were verified through empirical analysis. The results revealed that the topic focus, readability, and form diversity of popular science articles by physicians had a significant positive effect on physicians' performance. This study enriches the research perspective on the factors influencing physicians' performance, which has guiding implications for both physicians and platforms, thereby providing a basis for patients to choose physicians and enabling patients to receive popular science knowledge regarding health in an effective manner.

Chinese nurses' innovation capacity: The influence of inclusive leadership, empowering leadership and psychological empowerment

AIM

To explore the relationships between inclusive leadership, empowering leadership, nurses' perceived psychological empowerment and nurses' innovation capacity.

BACKGROUND

Innovation capacity is essential for nurses to adapt to the changing healthcare environment. However, the current knowledge of nurses' innovation capacity and its' relationships between inclusive leadership, empowering leadership and psychological empowerment is limited.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey using a convenience sample was conducted among 1355 nurses in ten hospitals in Tianjin, China. The data was analyzed by correlation analysis, univariate analysis and PROCESS macro.

RESULTS

High inclusive leadership, empowering leadership and high psychological empowerment were associated with high innovation capacity. The total effect of inclusive leadership and empowering leadership on innovation capacity through psychological empowerment was significant, with their indirect effects accounting for 69.19% and 61.29% of the total effect respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

To cultivate nurses' innovation capacity, the development of inclusive leadership, empowering leadership and psychological empowerment is important.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

This research highlights the importance of inclusive leadership and empowering leadership to foster nurses' innovation capacity. Understanding the mediating role of psychological empowerment is expected to help nurse managers develop relevant intervention strategies to cultivate nurses' innovation capacity.

The Effect of Media Richness on the Stability of Physician-Patient Relationships on E-Consultation Platforms

Incorporating media richness theory, social presence theory, and apparatgeist theory, the authors used multiple linear regression to explore the effect of media richness on the stability of physician-patient relationships and the moderating effect of disease complexity and response timeliness on the relationship between media richness and relationship stability. The results showed that media richness had a positive effect on the stability of physician-patient relationships. Additionally, both disease complexity and response timeliness positively affect the relationship between media richness and the stability of physician-patient relationships. This research contributes to the literature concerning media selection, e-consultation platforms, and physician-patient relationships; and it provides practical guidance for online doctor teams on how to select appropriate media communication forms for patient consultations in different situations.

Are Diverse Media Better than a Single Medium? The Relationship between Mixed Media and Perceived Effect from the Perspective of Online Psychological Counseling

The progress of new media has promoted the development of online health consultations. Previous research has investigated the impact of media richness on user satisfaction; however, little attention has been given to the mixed effects of the nesting of multiple media. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact and differences of the use of single or mixed media on users' perceived effect from the perspectives of social support and satisfaction by mining user reviews on online health platforms. The data were collected from a professional online psychological counseling platform. We collected data on 48,807 reviews from 11,694 users. Text annotation and sentiment analysis were then used to extract variable eigenvalues from the reviews. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and hierarchical regression analysis were used for statistical analysis. The results show that mixed media with different richness has a significant impact on the users' perceived effects. Among them, compared to "text + audio," using "text + audio + video/face to face" can significantly improve the users' perceived social support and satisfaction. However, compared to single medium, mixed media with higher richness may not necessarily achieve a better effect. We found that the inclusion of "video/face to face" mixed media significantly reduced the users' perceived social support and satisfaction compared to text or audio use alone. These research results complement the blank media richness theory in the field of online health care and provide guidance for improving the personalized customization of online psychological counseling platforms.

The Impact of Gamification-Induced Users' Feelings on the Continued Use of mHealth Apps: A Structural Equation Model With the Self-Determination Theory Approach

Background

Continued use of mHealth apps can achieve better effects in health management. Gamification is an important factor in promoting users’ intention to continue using mHealth apps. Past research has rarely explored the factors underlying the continued use of mobile health (mHealth) apps and gamification’s impact mechanism or path on continued use.

Objective

This study aimed to explore the factors influencing mHealth app users’ intention to continue using mHealth apps and the impact mechanism and path of users’ feelings induced by gamification on continued mHealth app use.

Methods

First, based on the expectation confirmation model of information system continuance, we built a theoretical model for continued use of mHealth apps based on users’ feelings toward gamification. We used self-determination theory to analyze gamification’s impact on user perceptions and set the resulting feelings (competence, autonomy, and relatedness) as constructs in the model. Second, we used the survey method to validate the research model, and we used partial least squares to analyze the data.

Results

A total of 2988 responses were collected from mHealth app users, and 307 responses were included in the structural equation model after passing the acceptance criteria. The intrinsic motivation for using mHealth apps is significantly affected by autonomy (β=.312; P<.001), competence (β=.346; P<.001), and relatedness (β=.165; P=.004) induced by gamification. The intrinsic motivation for using mHealth apps has a significant impact on satisfaction (β=.311, P<.001) and continuance intention (β=.142; P=.045); furthermore, satisfaction impacts continuance intention significantly (β=.415; P<.001). Confirmation has a significant impact on perceived usefulness (β=.859; P<.001) and satisfaction (β=.391; P<.001), and perceived usefulness has a significant impact on satisfaction (β=.269; P<.001) and continuance intention (β=.273; P=.001). The mediating effect analysis showed that in the impact path of the intrinsic motivation for using the mHealth apps on continuance intention, satisfaction plays a partial mediating role (β=.129; P<.001), with a variance accounted for of 0.466.

Conclusions

This study explored the impact path of users’ feelings induced by gamification on the intention of continued mHealth app use. We confirmed that perceived usefulness, confirmation, and satisfaction in the classical continued use theory for nonmedical information systems positively affect continuance intention. We also found that the path and mechanism of users' feelings regarding autonomy, competence, and relatedness generated during interactions with different gamification elements promote the continued use of mHealth apps.

Influences of Medical Crowdfunding Website Design Features on Trust and Intention to Donate: Controlled Laboratory Experiment

Background

As a type of donation-based crowdfunding, medical crowdfunding has gradually become an important way for patients who have difficulty paying medical bills to seek help from the public. However, many people still have limited confidence in donating money to medical crowdfunding projects.

Objective

Given that the features of a medical crowdfunding website may be important to gain users’ trust, this study draws upon two-factor and trust theories to explore how different design features of medical crowdfunding websites affect potential donors’ cognition-based trust and affect-based trust, and how these types of trust affect the intention to donate.

Methods

A 2 (informativeness: high vs low) × 2 (visual cues: cool color vs warm color) × 2 (social cues: with vs without) between-subject laboratory experiment was performed to validate our research model. A total of 320 undergraduate students recruited from a university in China participated in the controlled laboratory experiment.

Results

Cognition-based trust (β=.528, P<.001) and affect-based trust (β=.344, P<.001) exerted significant effects on the intention to donate of potential donors of medical crowdfunding. Informativeness as a hygiene factor positively influenced potential donors’ cognition-based trust (F_1,311=49.764, P<.001) and affect-based trust (F_1,311=16.093, P<.001), whereas social cues as a motivating factor significantly influenced potential donors’ cognition-based trust (F_1,311=38.160, P<.001) and affect-based trust (F_1,311=23.265, P<.001). However, the color of the webpages affected the two dimensions of trust differently. Specifically, medical crowdfunding webpages with warm colors were more likely to induce affect-based trust than those with cool colors (F_1,311=17.120, P<.001), whereas no significant difference was found between the effects of cool and warm colors on cognition-based trust (F_1,311=1.707, P=.19).

Conclusions

This study deepens our understanding of the relationships among the design features of medical crowdfunding websites, trust, and intention to donate, and provides guidelines for managers of medical crowdfunding platforms to enhance potential donors’ trust-building by improving the website design features.

Sharing of Verified Information about COVID-19 on Social Network Sites: A Social Exchange Theory Perspective

Background: Verified and authentic information about coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on social networking sites (SNS) could help people make appropriate decisions to protect themselves. However, little is known about what factors influence people’s sharing of verified information about COVID-19. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the factors that influence people’s sharing of verified information about COVID-19 on social networking sites. Methods: Based on social exchange theory, we explore the factors that influence sharing of verified information about COVID-19 from two perspectives: benefits and costs. We employed the survey method to validate our hypothesized relationships. By using our developed measurement instruments, we collected 347 valid responses from SNS users and utilized the partial least squares method to analyze the data. Results: Among the benefits of sharing verified information about COVID-19, enjoyment in helping (β = 0.357, p = 0.000), altruism (β = 0.133, p = 0.029) and reputation (β = 0.202, p = 0.000) were significantly associated with verified information sharing about COVID-19. Regarding the costs of sharing verified information about COVID-19, both verification cost (β = −0.078, p = 0.046) and executional cost (β = −0.126, p = 0.011) also significantly affect verified information sharing about COVID-19. All the proposed hypotheses were supported. Conclusions: By exploring factors from both benefits and costs perspectives, we could understand users’ intention to share verified information about COVID-19 comprehensively. This study not only contributes to the literature on information sharing, but also has implications concerning users’ behaviors on SNS.