Min Jing, Chen Yan, Wang Li, He Ting, Tang Sha
Department of Endocrinology, The Central Hospital of Wuhan, No. 26, Shengli Street, Jiang'an District, Wuhan, 430000, Hubei Province, China.
BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2021 Jun 28;21(1):201. doi: 10.1186/s12911-021-01561-3.
Online health communities (OHCs), with a wealth of multi-source information exchange, have provided a convenient way for people with diabetes to actively participate in their self-management and have been widely used. Information exchange assists people with diabetes with health-related decisions to actively engage in their care, and reduce the occurrence of potential complications of diabetes. However, there has been relatively little research on the information exchange behaviors and their effect on health in professional online medical platforms-OHCs.
Using a social exchange theory, this study focuses on two sources of information (doctors and people with diabetes) to investigate information exchange behaviors and consequences. Moreover, we also examine moderating effects of information price as patients need to pay prices for consulting with doctors to obtain medical information on OHCs.
By using the Python program, a rich dataset contained 22,746 doctor-patient dialogues from December 2017 to December 2018 is collected from the biggest OHC in China. Then the logistic and ordinal regression models are used to get empirical results.
We found that first information sharing from doctors and other people with diabetes can promote their information sharing behavior. Second, the moderating effects of information price are heterogeneous and change with the exchange participants. Third, rich information exchange supports self-management of people with diabetes and improves their health status.
This study is among the first that tests the information exchange behavior and consequence for diabetes in OHCs and examines the moderating effects of the information price. The present study produces several insights, which have implications for social exchange, patient behavior, online health communities, and information technology in diabetes self-management literature.
在线健康社区（OHCs）拥有丰富的多源信息交流，为糖尿病患者积极参与自我管理提供了便捷途径，并已得到广泛应用。信息交流有助于糖尿病患者做出与健康相关的决策，积极参与自身护理，减少糖尿病潜在并发症的发生。然而，对于专业在线医疗平台——在线健康社区中的信息交流行为及其对健康的影响，相关研究相对较少。
本研究运用社会交换理论，聚焦于两种信息来源（医生和糖尿病患者），以调查信息交流行为及其后果。此外，我们还考察了信息价格的调节作用，因为患者在在线健康社区向医生咨询以获取医疗信息时需要支付费用。
通过Python程序，从中国最大的在线健康社区收集了一个丰富的数据集，其中包含2017年12月至2018年12月期间的22746条医患对话。然后使用逻辑回归和有序回归模型得出实证结果。
我们发现，首先医生和其他糖尿病患者的首次信息共享能够促进他们的信息共享行为。其次，信息价格的调节作用具有异质性，且会随着交流参与者的不同而变化。第三，丰富的信息交流有助于糖尿病患者的自我管理，并改善他们的健康状况。
本研究是首批测试在线健康社区中糖尿病信息交流行为及其后果，并考察信息价格调节作用的研究之一。本研究得出了一些见解，对糖尿病自我管理文献中的社会交换、患者行为、在线健康社区和信息技术具有启示意义。
