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Given the popularity of online health communities (OHCs) and medical question-and-answer (Q&A) services, it is increasingly important to understand what constitutes useful answers and user-adopted standards in healthcare domain. However, few studies provide insights into how health information characteristics, provider characteristics and recipient characteristics jointly influence user information adoption decisions. To fill this research gap, this study examines the combined effects of physicians' certainty tone as information characteristics, seniority as provider characteristics and disease severity as recipient characteristics on patients' health information adoption.

Drawing on dual-process theory and information adoption model, an extended information adoption model is established in this study to examine the effect of attitude certainty on patients' health information adoption, and the moderating effects of online seniority and offline seniority, as well as patient motivation level—disease severity. Utilizing logit regression models, the authors empirically tested the hypotheses based on 4,224 Q&A records from a popular Chinese OHC.

The results show that (1) attitude certainty has a significant positive impact on patients' health information adoption, (2) the relationship between attitude certainty and information adoption is negatively moderated by physicians' online seniority, but is positively moderated by offline seniority; (3) there is a negative three-way interaction effect of attitude certainty, online seniority and disease severity on patients' health information adoption.

This study extends the information adoption model to examine the two-way interaction between argument quality and source reliability, as well as the three-way interaction with user motivation level, especially for health information adoption in the healthcare field. These findings also provide direct practical applications for knowledge contributors and OHCs.

Although online health communities (OHCs) and online patient reviews can help to eliminate health information asymmetry and improve patients' health management, how patients write online reviews within OHCs is poorly understood. Thus, it is very necessary to determine the factors influencing patients' online review behavior in OHCs, including the emotional response and reviewing effort.

Based on expectation-disconfirmation theory, this study proposes a theoretical model to analyze the effects of service quality perception (i.e. outcome quality and process quality perceptions) and disconfirmation (i.e. outcome quality and process quality disconfirmations) on patients' emotional response and reviewing effort. The authors test the research model by using empirical data collected from a popular Chinese OHC and applying ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and zero-truncated negative binomial (ZTNB) regression models.

Both service quality perception and disconfirmation have a positive effect on patients' positive emotional intensity in textual reviews, and disease severity enhances these relationships of process quality. Moreover, there is an asymmetric U-shaped relationship among service quality perception, disconfirmation and reviewing effort. Patients who perceive low service quality have higher reviewing effort, while service quality disconfirmation has the opposite relationship. Specifically, patients' effort in writing textual reviews is lowest when perceived outcome quality is 3.5 (on a five-point scale), perceived process quality is 4 or outcome quality and process quality disconfirmations are −1.

This study is the first to examine patients' online review behavior and its motivations and contributes to the literature on online reviews and service quality. In addition, the findings of this study have important management implications for service providers and OHC managers.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the nutritional status and quality of life in patients according to the clinical severity of liver cirrhosis.

A total of 151 cirrhotics were selected for study. Nutritional assessment was done by anthropometry, subjective global assessment, malnutrition universal screening tool, biochemical estimations and 72‐hour dietary recall. Quality of life was assessed by chronic liver disease questionnaire.

Child's status was A/B/C in 29/68/59, respectively. Muscle and fat depletion was significantly higher in grade C patients as compared to grade A and B patients. Incidence of malnutrition was lowest in grade A patients (72.4 percent) and highest in grade C patients (90.74 percent) (p = 0.00). Calorie and protein intake was significantly lower in grade C patients compared to grade A and B patients (p = 0.00). Child Pugh score was found to be an independent risk factor for various nutritional and clinical parameters.

The data presented reflect the assessment of a very small cohort of these patients and should be done on a larger scale.

Looking into the high prevalence of malnutrition and the negative impact of disease severity, nutritional assessment of these patients should be done on a regular basis and nutritional therapy planned accordingly.

Data on malnutrition from India are scarce. This study is a small attempt to throw light on the nutritional status and its variation according to clinical severity of liver cirrhosis.

The study aims to enhance the detection and classification of conjunctival eye diseases' severity through the development of ConjunctiveNet, an innovative deep learning framework. This model incorporates advanced preprocessing techniques and utilizes a modified Otsu’s method for improved image segmentation, aiming to improve diagnostic accuracy and efficiency in healthcare settings.

ConjunctiveNet employs a convolutional neural network (CNN) enhanced through transfer learning. The methodology integrates rescaling, normalization, Gaussian blur filtering and contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) for preprocessing. The segmentation employs a novel modified Otsu’s method. The framework’s effectiveness is compared against five pretrained CNN architectures including AlexNet, ResNet-50, ResNet-152, VGG-19 and DenseNet-201.

The study finds that ConjunctiveNet significantly outperforms existing models in accuracy for detecting various severity stages of conjunctival eye conditions. The model demonstrated superior performance in classifying four distinct severity stages – initial, moderate, high, severe and a healthy stage – offering a reliable tool for enhancing screening and diagnosis processes in ophthalmology.

ConjunctiveNet represents a significant advancement in the automated diagnosis of eye diseases, particularly conjunctivitis. Its originality lies in the integration of modified Otsu’s method for segmentation and its comprehensive preprocessing approach, which collectively enhance its diagnostic capabilities. This framework offers substantial value to the field by improving the accuracy and efficiency of conjunctival disease severity classification, thus aiding in better healthcare delivery.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease that puts strain on health-care systems. Obesity is considered as a risk factor for the severity of infection. Hypotheses also suggested some nutritional supplements may be useful in COVID-19. This paper aims to assess the role of body mass index (BMI) and nutritional supplements on the severity of COVID-19.

This research was conducted on 603 participants (in five groups including: exposure to virus and healthy, COVID-19 positive patients with severity of mild, moderate, severe and death from COVID-19), in age 18 to 65 years. Demographic data and history of nutritional supplements were asked. Anthropometric measurements were measured in a healthy group and in a patient. They were collected by referring to patients' medical records.

The mean of BMI in groups with severity symptoms of moderate (27.57 kg/m²), severe (29.70 kg/m²) and death persons (28.13 kg/m²), was significantly higher than healthy (26.70 kg/m²) and mild symptoms (26.57 kg/m²) groups (p = 0.001). The logistic regression shown, the fourth quartile of BMI was significantly associated with occurrence of COVID19, odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI): [OR: 1.81, (95% CI: 1.13– 2.89), p-for trend = 0.55]. There was no significant difference in the percentage of vitamin C, D3, Zinc, Iron and multivitamin supplements intake, between groups, in the past six months (p = 0.11).

This study indicated the role of higher BMI in the occurrence and severity of COVID-19. Researches are not enough to recommend consumption of nutritional supplements for the prevention of COVID-19.

Despite the prevalent use of professional status and service feedback in online healthcare markets, the potential interaction relationship between two types of information is still unknown. This study used the signaling theory to examine the substitute relationship between professional status and service feedback in patients' doctor choice, as well as the moderating effect of illness severity.

To test the paper's hypotheses, we constructed a panel data model using 418 doctors' data collected over a period of six months from an online healthcare market in China. Then, according to the results of the Hausman test, we estimated a fixed-effects model of patients' choice in online healthcare markets.

The empirical results showed that the effect of a doctor's professional status and service feedback on a patient's doctor choice was substitutable. Moreover, patients' illness severity played a moderating role, in that the influence of professional status on a patient with high-severity illness was higher than that on a patient with low-severity illness, whereas the influence of service feedback on a patient with low-severity illness was higher than that of a patient with high-severity illness. In addition, we found that illness severity negatively moderated the substitute relationship between professional status and service feedback on a patient's choice.

These findings not only contribute to signaling theory and research on online healthcare markets, but also help us understand the importance of professional status and service feedback on a patient's choice when seeking a doctor online.

The objective of this study was to examine the causal relationships among sex, social support, disease severity, symptoms, physical activity, general health perception and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in Thai adolescents with congenital heart disease (CHD).

A cross-sectional study was conducted using convenience sampling to recruit 200 Thai adolescents with CHD aged between 13 and18 years from four tertiary university hospitals in Bangkok. Interview method and self-administered questionnaires were used for data collection held between November 2018 and February 2019. Data were analyzed using path analysis to test the hypothesized model of the relationships.

The causal model of HRQOL revealed a good fit with the data. This model of relationship could explain 48% of the variances in HRQOL. Only direct effects of disease severity, symptoms and social support on HRQOL were found while indirect effects were not.

Due to the lack of study focusing on factors influencing HRQOL in Thai adolescents with CHD, this empirical study provides the evidence in Thai literature. The modifiable influencing factors for HRQOL found in this study can be manipulated through psycho-educational intervention given to the adolescents and significant others, especially parents, to help increase quality of life in adolescents with CHD.

Although crisis communication via social media has engaged academia's attention during the disease outbreak, information value for preventive behaviors is inadequately studied. The purpose of this paper is to cast light on how to strengthen the uptake of older people's coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) behavioral outcomes due to information value and perceived threat through social media.

This study designs a survey and applies structural equation modeling to examine a research framework. A sample comprises 334 Vietnamese older participants who have utilized social media.

The results illustrate that preventive behaviors are determined by perceived threat (i.e. severity and susceptibility). Furthermore, older people heighten risk perceptions based on information characteristics, including information relevance, informative support and source credibility. Lastly, information relevance is a strong predictor of source credibility.

The findings assist practitioners to enhance crisis communication effectiveness via social media by imparting valuable information to the public. Moreover, this paper offers overarching guidelines on the improvement in credibility with creators, risk consciousness and preventive behaviors.

Although earlier studies focused attentiveness on the power of social media for raising threat perceptions, this work seems the first to unveil informative motives for perceived COVID-19 threat across older individuals, which subsequently presents plausible reasons for behavioral disclosure, including facemask-wearing, hand-washing and social distancing.

The purpose of this paper is to critically summarize the current data concerning the impact of obesity and micronutrient adequacy and supplementation on the risk and severity of COVID-19 disease, and their potential impact on treatment and rehabilitation.

PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar databases were thoroughly searched to identify studies concerning obesity and nutritional status, vitamin and other micronutrients adequacy with COVID-19 severity.

Individuals with higher body mass index are in greater risk of severe disease and need for mechanical ventilation. Concerning micronutrient adequacy, no published studies at the present time have evaluated the effect of supplementation on the risk and the treatment of the novel disease.

Recently, COVID-19 has monopolized the interest of the medical community regarding diet and nutritional status and it possibly plays an important role in disease severity.

Arthritis is the most prevalent chronic condition in persons ages 65 and older and is projected to increase substantially as the population ages. The purpose of this research is to assess if age, duration of arthritis, and severity of arthritis exert independent effects on various aspects of the disability process: functional limitations, activities of daily living (ADL) limitations, and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) limitations. Type of arthritis, socio-demographic factors, behavioral factors, and additional health statuses are also examined. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement study, results show age and severity of arthritis are related to the number of functional limitations one has and to the odds of having ADL and IADL limitations. Duration of arthritis is positively related to functional limitations and to the odds of reporting ADL limitations. Duration of arthritis is not significantly related to IADL limitations, which are strongly linked to performing social roles and have less to do with physical functioning compared to ADL tasks and functional tasks. There is no difference between those with established arthritis compared to those who have had it for a shorter time period, suggesting those with arthritis adapt to social tasks better than physical tasks. The resources used to cope with IADL limitations may be more effective over time compared to those used to cope with functional limitations and ADL disability. Understanding the context of functional limitations and disability among those with arthritis may lead to improved support and care for those living with arthritis.