Adoption of online follow-up service by patients: An empirical study based on the elaboration likelihood model

Abstract The rapid development of Web 2.0 technologies has made it possible for online health communities to provide convenient platforms that enable doctors to provide medical services and enable patients to consult the doctors online. When patients finish medical treatment in offline hospitals, they can find the doctor for online follow-up service at the post-diagnosis step. To understand which factors can affect patients’ decisions on adopting an online follow-up service, this paper drew on the Elaboration Likelihood Model as the theoretical base to study patients’ decision process. We regarded the technical quality and interpersonal quality of doctors’ medical service as central cues and considered electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) as a peripheral cue. By analyzing the data from a popular online health community in China, the results show that the technical quality, interpersonal quality, and eWOM of doctors’ medical services positively impacted patients’ online follow-up intention. Moreover, we also found that high-privacy disease and private doctor service significantly moderate the relationship between technical quality or eWOM of doctors’ medical services and patients’ online follow-up intention. Our study sheds some light on profoundly understanding the decision process of patients in using online follow-up services and contributes to the research of online healthcare services.