Liu Hu, Gong Xiaomei, Zhang Jiaping
International Business School, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, Shaanxi, China.
School of Public Economics and Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai 200433, China.
Healthcare (Basel). 2020 Mar 31;8(2):81. doi: 10.3390/healthcare8020081.
Empirical evidence that combines traditional factors and information technology factors to predict public attitudes toward to medical services is inadequate. To fill this gap, this study investigates the impact of Internet use on people's satisfaction with medical services by employing the Chinese Social Survey for 2013, 2015 and 2017 (including 28,239 samples in total). Estimation results under the ordered probit reveal that Internet use is negatively correlated with individuals' medical services satisfaction. The results support the negativity bias theory, namely, compared with positive information, netizens pay more attention to negative medical-related information on the Internet. The results are still reliable by adopting substitution variable methods, subdividing the samples, employing other estimation methods and carrying out placebo tests to conduct robustness checks. This study further enriches the literature on public attitudes toward medical services and provides additional policy implications for medical risk management in the digital era.
将传统因素与信息技术因素相结合来预测公众对医疗服务态度的实证证据并不充分。为填补这一空白，本研究利用2013年、2015年和2017年的中国社会调查（共28239个样本），调查了互联网使用对人们医疗服务满意度的影响。有序概率模型下的估计结果显示，互联网使用与个人医疗服务满意度呈负相关。研究结果支持消极偏差理论，即与正面信息相比，网民更关注互联网上与医疗相关的负面信息。通过采用替代变量法、细分样本、采用其他估计方法和进行安慰剂检验来进行稳健性检验，结果仍然可靠。本研究进一步丰富了关于公众对医疗服务态度的文献，并为数字时代的医疗风险管理提供了更多政策启示。
