Zhu Panpan, Shen Jiang, Xu Man
College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.
Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
J Med Internet Res. 2020 Apr 1;22(4):e16546. doi: 10.2196/16546.
Online patient communities provide new channels for users to access and share medical information. In-depth study of users' willingness to share information in online patient communities is of great significance for improving the level of information sharing among the patient community and the long-term development of communities.
The aim of this study was to build a model of factors affecting patients' willingness to share medical information from the perspective of both positive and negative utilities. Specifically, we aimed to determine the influence of online information support and privacy concerns, as well as the moderating effect of disease severity and information sensitivity of different patients on their willingness to share.
Data from 490 users with experience in online patient communities were collected through a questionnaire survey, and structural equations were applied to empirically verify the model hypotheses.
Privacy concerns negatively affected the patients' willingness to share information (P<.001), whereas online information support positively affected patients' willingness to share information (P<.001), and information sensitivity negatively moderated the impact of online information support on sharing willingness (P=.01). Disease severity positively moderated the impact of privacy concerns on sharing willingness (P=.05). However, the hypotheses that information sensitivity is a negative moderator and disease severity is a positive moderator of the impact of privacy concerns on sharing willingness could not be supported.
To improve the level of user information sharing, the online patient community should design a safe user registration process, ensure the confidentiality of information, reduce the privacy concerns of users, and accurately identify the information needs of patients to provide personalized support services.
在线患者社区为用户获取和分享医疗信息提供了新渠道。深入研究用户在在线患者社区中分享信息的意愿，对于提高患者社区的信息共享水平和社区的长期发展具有重要意义。
本研究旨在从正效用和负效用两个角度构建影响患者医疗信息分享意愿的因素模型。具体而言，我们旨在确定在线信息支持和隐私担忧的影响，以及不同患者的疾病严重程度和信息敏感性对其分享意愿的调节作用。
通过问卷调查收集了490名有在线患者社区经验的用户的数据，并应用结构方程对模型假设进行实证验证。
隐私担忧对患者的信息分享意愿有负面影响（P<0.001），而在线信息支持对患者的信息分享意愿有正面影响（P<0.001），信息敏感性对在线信息支持对分享意愿的影响有负向调节作用（P=0.01）。疾病严重程度对隐私担忧对分享意愿的影响有正向调节作用（P=0.05）。然而，信息敏感性是隐私担忧对分享意愿影响的负向调节因素以及疾病严重程度是隐私担忧对分享意愿影响的正向调节因素这两个假设未得到支持。
为提高用户信息共享水平，在线患者社区应设计安全的用户注册流程，确保信息保密，减少用户的隐私担忧，并准确识别患者的信息需求，以提供个性化的支持服务。
