Explaining Satisfaction with Online Patient–Physician Interactions from a Relational Communication Perspective

Online health interaction (OHI) is an effective and increasingly popular approach for patients to access health information. However, the extant literature overlooks patient satisfaction and the measurement of OHI processes. Using relational communication theory, this study proposes three core dimensions to conceptualize the success of OHI process (i.e., interaction depth, information intensity, and time breadth) and explores the association between these interaction factors and satisfaction. Further, two characteristics of OHI—information richness and indirect interaction—are identified as contingent factors of those proposed linkages. The research model, the Online Health Interaction Model (OHIM), was tested using an objective dataset consisting of 79,591 patient–physician interactions collected from a leading online healthcare platform in China. The findings show that (1) interaction depth, information intensity, and time breadth positively influence OHI satisfaction, and that (2) both information richness and indirect interaction negatively moderate the effects of interaction depth and information intensity but positively moderate the effect of time breadth. These results contribute to the existing literature by conceptualizing the OHI process and identifying the role of specific interaction behaviors and platform features that drive satisfaction, providing implications for future research and practice.