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Shared Minds: How Patients Use Collaborative Information Sharing via Social Media Platforms

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  • Lu (Lucy) Yan
  • Xiangbin Yan
  • Yong Tan
  • Sherry X. Sun

Abstract

Despite our understanding that social media and online healthcare communities can help to eliminate health information asymmetry and improve patients’ self‐care engagement, we have yet to understand what happens when patients have access to others’ health data and how patients’ access to these shared experiences and opinions influence their health knowledge and perceived treatment outcome. In this study, we apply social information processing theory and incorporate (1) uncertainty of a treatment, (2) information exposure, and (3) credibility of the information source into patients’ information evaluation function to assess how patients utilize shared health information and experiences. An empirical model, which combines various aspects of patients’ firsthand experiences about treatments into a single construct, yields empirical evidence that patients’ perceived treatment outcome is prone to social influence from other patients’ shared experiences. By disaggregating the sources of social influence, we find that social influence created by generalized others in the community outweighs that by familiar others of one's intimate social group. In addition, we find that other factors, such as positive sentiment in comments and patients’ prior experiences, also affect patients’ perceived treatment outcome. Based on our findings, implications for health promotion and health behaviors are presented.

Suggested Citation

  • Lu (Lucy) Yan & Xiangbin Yan & Yong Tan & Sherry X. Sun, 2019. "Shared Minds: How Patients Use Collaborative Information Sharing via Social Media Platforms," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 28(1), pages 9-26, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:popmgt:v:28:y:2019:i:1:p:9-26
    DOI: 10.1111/poms.12895
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    Cited by:

    1. Sen Yang & Haiyan Wang, 2024. "Evolutionary Game Analysis of Healthcare Information Construction and Sharing Decisions Considering Synergy Benefits," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-18, September.
    2. Dwivedi, Yogesh K & Shareef, Mahmud A & Akram, Muhammad S & Bhatti, Zeeshan A & Rana, Nripendra P, 2022. "Examining the effects of enterprise social media on operational and social performance during environmental disruption," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    3. Choi, Tsan-Ming & Guo, Shu & Luo, Suyuan, 2020. "When blockchain meets social-media: Will the result benefit social media analytics for supply chain operations management?," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    4. Xiaoxiao Liu & Mingye Hu & Bo Sophia Xiao & Jingbo Shao, 2022. "Is my doctor around me? Investigating the impact of doctors’ presence on patients’ review behaviors on an online health platform," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 73(9), pages 1279-1296, September.
    5. Sun, Huan & Wang, Haiyan & Steffensen, Sonja, 2022. "Mechanism design of multi-strategy health insurance plans under asymmetric information," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    6. Ni Huang & Zhijun Yan & Haonan Yin, 2021. "Effects of Online–Offline Service Integration on e‐Healthcare Providers: A Quasi‐Natural Experiment," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(8), pages 2359-2378, August.
    7. Shan, Wei & Wang, Jiaxuan & Shi, Xiaoxiao & David Evans, Richard, 2024. "The impact of electronic word-of-mouth on patients’ choices in online health communities: A cross-media perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    8. Liuan Wang & Lu (Lucy) Yan & Tongxin Zhou & Xitong Guo & Gregory R. Heim, 2020. "Understanding Physicians’ Online-Offline Behavior Dynamics: An Empirical Study," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 537-555, June.
    9. Zhanfei Lei & Dezhi Yin & Sabyasachi Mitra & Han Zhang, 2022. "Swayed by the reviews: Disentangling the effects of average ratings and individual reviews in online word‐of‐mouth," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(6), pages 2393-2411, June.
    10. Jun Pei & Ping Yan & Subodha Kumar & Xinbao Liu, 2021. "How to React to Internal and External Sharing in B2C and C2C," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(1), pages 145-170, January.
    11. Haris Krijestorac & Rajiv Garg & Prabhudev Konana, 2021. "Decisions Under the Illusion of Objectivity: Digital Embeddedness and B2B Purchasing," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(7), pages 2232-2251, July.
    12. Zaiyan Wei & Mo Xiao & Rong Rong, 2021. "Network Size and Content Generation on Social Media Platforms," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(5), pages 1406-1426, May.
    13. Yajie Hu & Huiwen Zhou & Yuangao Chen & Jianrong Yao & Jiangwu Su, 2023. "The influence of patient-generated reviews and doctor-patient relationship on online consultations in China," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 1115-1141, June.

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