Research on the influencing factors and the differences between the initial trust and continuous trust of online health community users

Abstract

Internet medical and health services are services that require high levels of trust. We identify factors that influence user trust based on trust source credibility model and trust transitivity model and explore differences in initial and continuous trust formation among users of online health communities from the perspective of trust dynamics. We found that the type of service provision, etc., which represents benevolence trust, whether doctors provide personal photographs, which represents integrity trust, and the overall recommendation popularity, number of electronic gifts, thank you letters, patient votes and positive service quality ratings, which represent trust transitivity, all significantly affect users' initial and continuous trust, but there are differences in the degree of influence on the two types of trust. The doctor's title in the ability trust only has a significant effect on users' initial trust and does not have a significant effect on continuous trust. The three dimensions of ability, benevolence and integrity in the trust source credibility model have a greater impact on users' initial trust than on their continuous trust, while trust transitivity has a greater impact on users' continuous trust than on their initial trust. Overall, in addition to traditional influences such as doctor's title, online information can also support users' decision making, indicating that online health communities can provide useful information to alleviate the current information asymmetry between doctors and patients.