BACKGROUND
With the rapid development of online healthcare communities, an increasing number of physicians provide services in the online healthcare communities that enable patients to consult online. However, it is difficult for patients to determine the professional level of doctors before consultation and diagnosis because of information asymmetry. A wealth of information about physicians displayed in their profile as a new means to help patients evaluate and select quickly and accurately.
OBJECTIVE
This research explores how the profile information presented in the online healthcare communities affects patients' impression formation, especially the perception of professional capital (i.e., status capital and decisional capital). The impression further affects their consultation intention, partially mediated by the initial trust. Toulmin’s model of argumentation is used to understand the strength of the argument presented in physicians’ homepage information and divide it into claim, data, and backing.
METHODS
This study conducts an internet experiment and recruits 386 subjects on the internet to explore the effect of impression formation on online selection behavior by a patient.
RESULTS
The results show that the strength of argument has a significant positive association with the perception of professional capital. Perceptions of professional capital are highest when a fully composed argument (claim/data/backing) is included in a profile, with claim/data being the next highest and claim only the lowest. Recommendations from connections have the strongest impact. The professional capital perception, in turn, influences patients’ selection decisions, which is partially mediated by initial trust.
CONCLUSIONS
This study is of great significance to the implication for theory and practice. On the one hand, this research contributes to the online health community literature and suggests that the perception of professional capital on physicians be pre-presumed and built on the basis of the information before in-person interactive online. On the other hand, this study is helpful to understand the effect of various components included in the profile information on perceiving physicians’ ability, and not all information is of the same importance.