School of Media and Communication, Korea University.
School of Management Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology.
Health Commun. 2020 May;35(6):659-666. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2019.1582311. Epub 2019 Mar 1.
People's privacy concerns about electronic health records (EHRs) have been widely discussed. Given that in principle, patients have the right to control their information in EHRs, the system will not reach its full potential without their support. Although human beings are generally inclined toward privacy, contextual differences play a role in individual decisions to disclose personal information. Likewise, patients exhibit different responses in terms of sharing their health information in diverse scenarios. Empirical work on patients' attitudes towards the secondary use of their health information is scarce. This study aims to investigate individuals' willingness to share their health information based on anonymity, information type (partial vs. whole), and the type of information user (health professionals, health researchers, health-related governmental agencies, and other governmental agencies). Furthermore, this study attempts to examine the effects of interaction between the three factors. A survey was conducted in South Korea, and the data obtained were analyzed by ANOVA. Despite the recent rapid diffusion of EHRs in South Korea, there is little discussion of patients' privacy in society. The results show that, although anonymity and the user type have a significant effect on willingness to share health information, the information type has no significant effect. The results also indicate that the willingness to share was higher for health-related governmental agencies and health professionals than for other governmental agencies. The findings reveal that, although willingness to share anonymous information does not vary significantly, the willingness differs for identified information. The study contributes to research on patients' privacy behavior by analyzing their comprehensive responses to health information-sharing investigations.
人们对电子健康记录（EHRs）的隐私问题一直存在广泛的讨论。鉴于原则上，患者有权控制其在 EHRs 中的信息，如果没有他们的支持，该系统将无法充分发挥其潜力。尽管人类普遍倾向于保护隐私，但在个人决定披露个人信息时，情境差异会起到一定的作用。同样，患者在不同场景下分享健康信息时表现出不同的反应。关于患者对其健康信息二次使用的态度的实证研究还很缺乏。本研究旨在调查个人基于匿名、信息类型（部分与全部）以及信息使用者类型（医疗保健专业人员、医疗保健研究人员、医疗保健相关政府机构和其他政府机构）来共享其健康信息的意愿。此外，本研究试图检验这三个因素之间的交互作用的影响。该研究在韩国进行了一项调查，对获得的数据进行了方差分析。尽管 EHRs 在韩国最近迅速普及，但社会对患者隐私的讨论甚少。研究结果表明，尽管匿名和用户类型对共享健康信息的意愿有显著影响，但信息类型没有显著影响。结果还表明，与其他政府机构相比，医疗保健相关政府机构和医疗保健专业人员的共享意愿更高。研究结果表明，虽然对匿名信息的共享意愿没有显著差异，但对已识别信息的共享意愿存在差异。本研究通过分析患者对健康信息共享调查的综合反应，为患者隐私行为研究做出了贡献。
