Search results

This paper aims to examine the health technology use in health information seeking, communication and personal health information management, as well as in the effects they may have on his relationship with the physician and on the consumption of medical resources.

An online survey was conducted. The questionnaires were distributed via online health discussion forums using Google's survey software with a summary presentation of the study’s objective. The final selection of 362 individuals was made using social media, direct email and collaboration with community groups. The empirical validation of the causal model was conducted using the partial least square approach.

The results show that the use of e-health strengthens the quality of the patient–physician relationship and patient empowerment while increasing the consumption of medical resources.

The results of this research indicate that the internet has transformed the relationship of patients to health, to their doctors and to the health-care system. In this new context, a reconsideration of the status of the patient must be considered by health service providers.

This paper aims to automatically obtain the implant parameter from the CBCT images to improve the outcome of implant planning.

This paper proposes automatic simulated dental implant positioning on CBCT images, which can significantly improve the efficiency of implant planning. The authors introduce the fusion point calculation method for the missing tooth's long axis and root axis based on the dental arch line used to obtain the optimal fusion position. In addition, the authors proposed a semi-interactive visualization method of implant parameters that be automatically simulated by the authors' method. If the plan does not meet the doctor's requirements, the final implant plan can be fine-tuned to achieve the optimal effect.

A series of experimental results show that the method proposed in this paper greatly improves the feasibility and accuracy of the implant planning scheme, and the visualization method of planting parameters improves the planning efficiency and the friendliness of system use.

The proposed method can be applied to dental implant planning software to improve the communication efficiency between doctors, patients and technicians.

This study aims to study the mechanisms and conditions of users' intention to continue to use online health platforms from an information technology (IT) affordance perspective.

b This research proposes that a critical affordance effect on an online health platform, users' intention to continue the use of the platform, is affected by five platform affordances via two actualized affordances (i.e. perceived benefits (PBs) and online engagement (OE)). Perceived health threat moderates the effect generated by affordance actualization. A dataset involving 409 users from the “Ping An Health” platform was collected through an online survey and analyzed to validate the research hypotheses.

The data analysis results confirm that the proposed online health platform affordances affect users' PBs and OE, which influence users' intentions to continue using the platform. Perceived threats (perceived vulnerability (PVU) and perceived severity (PSE)) moderate the relationship between PBs and continuance intention (CI) and between OE and CI.

The research provides important recommendations for online health platform designers to develop IT affordances that can support users' needs for healthcare services.

Limited studies investigated why users continue participating in online diagnosis and treatment. This study provides a new perspective to expand the affordance framework by combining technology features and user health behavior. The study also emphasizes the importance of perceived threats in IT use.

Consumer confusion is an emerging phenomenon of interest that significantly drives choice behaviour. Considering the dearth of scholarly focus on confusion faced by consumers in a healthcare setting, this paper aims to conceptualize and validate a patient confusion model consisting of its drivers and outcomes.

Drawing upon adaptive decision-making framework and consumer confusion literature, patient confusion model has been developed. Empirical data of 310 patients from three private sector hospitals in India was collected through pen and paper survey administration. The hypothesized patient confusion model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to derive confirmatory results.

The results confirm the role of decision-making variables such as information overload, information similarity, information ambiguity, information asymmetry, patient involvement and physician-patient communication in the occurrence of patient confusion. A significant impact of confusion on switching intention was also confirmed, providing insights for healthcare managers.

The effect of confusion on switching intention of consumers found through the present study holds significant implications from a healthcare management standpoint. Dissemination of credible information, improved communication between doctors and patients and creation of organized channels of health information provision also represent some of the notable implications for healthcare managers to mitigate patient confusion.

This study presents an empirically validated model of patient confusion creating a research agenda for theory development in this emerging area. Consumer confusion represents a core consumer behaviour problem that is of utmost significance in the healthcare sector. This paper is one of the first and early attempts to address this research problem.

This article aims to explore the factors influencing patients' distrust toward doctors in online health community.

This study leveraged the distrust construct model and socio-technical systems theory to establish a research model. The authors used the survey method to validate the research model by developing and distributing questionnaires to online health community users. 518 valid responses were collected.

The data analysis results showed that patients' distrusting beliefs were significantly related to their distrust toward doctors in online health communities. Meanwhile, social factors included perceived egoism and lack of expertise; whereas technical factors included no structural assurance, and lack of third-party recognition.

This study not only provides a solid and comprehensive theoretical understanding of patient distrust toward doctors in online health communities but also could serve as the basis to relieve the distrust between patients and doctors in online health communities, or even in the offline environment.

There is evidence of Bangladeshi citizens travelling to India to receive medical treatments, known as medical tourism. This study aims to explore the perceived justice dimensions of Bangladeshi patients towards domestic health care and the effects of these dimensions on their intention for outbound tourism to India.

Data from 307 Bangladeshi medical tourists were collected to test the proposed model. The data has been interpreted through the proposed model with covariance-based structural equation modelling in AMOS. To produce the results, the measurement model and structural model were examined.

The analysis confirmed the significant impact of procedural, informational and interpersonal justice dimensions on patients’ health-care experiences. However, the effect of distributive justice on patient experience has been found insignificant. The study also revealed a significant negative impact of patient satisfaction on outbound medical tourism intention. Thus, it raises concerns for the local medical service providers about improving patient satisfaction.

The findings of this paper can be applicable for health-care practitioners and policymakers in emerging countries to improve the bottlenecks of the health-care system for increasing patients’ service experiences and reducing the intention of patients for outbound medical tourism.

The research on perceived justice theory regarding the intention of medical tourism is limited. This research is one of the few studies to combine perceived justice theory with trust and medical tourism decision-making. Using the lens of perceived justice, this research argues that the decrease in perceived justice negatively affects the patients’ service experience, trust and loyalty to the service provider.

This article seeks to provide a fresh perspective on the methodological approach to studying caregiving in a transnational context by analysing, local caregiver’s lifeworld, informal interpreting/translation and professional communication with foreign retirees.

This project explores the complex and multifaceted meanings of everyday objects through diffractive vignettes to illuminate the communicative entanglements that arise between caregivers and foreign retirees receiving care in Thailand. To identify intra-actions in caregiving, we collected data through informal interviews, observations and various artefacts before combining them in a group of potential communicative relationships by creating a narrative summary of situations.

Communicative relationships in the vignettes are multidimensional, with diverse logics underlying choices, rapport formation and communication effectiveness. This premise also illuminates how caregivers perceive and intra-act with their accommodation strategies, considering trust, comfort and comprehension. Our findings were also discussed with the concept of communication accommodation theory.

As an extension of the post-humanist approach to the diffractive reading of vignettes, this study sees its value in studying agent-related informal translation/interpreting and human-to-human relationships.

This study aims to examine the effects of risk disclosure and call to action (i.e. encouraging individuals to consult a health provider before they make any purchase decision) on young adults’ cognitive and behavioral responses to dietary supplement advertising.

A 2 (risk disclosure: absence vs presence) × 2 (call to action: absence vs presence) between-subjects online experiment was conducted with 124 college-attending young adults.

Including risk disclosure in probiotic supplement advertising increased young adults’ perceived message credibility, intentions to ask a medical doctor and sense of confidence in decision-making. The addition of call to action in probiotic supplement advertising improved perceived message credibility, trust in advertised brand, favorable attitude toward brand, intention to ask a medical doctor and purchase intention; however, a significant joint effect was not found between risk disclosure and call to action.

Although risk disclosure and call to action are significant techniques in pharmaceutical and health-care marketing, they have been overlooked by both research and practice of dietary supplement marketing. This study closes this gap by providing empirical evidence to generate a clear idea about the benefits of including risk disclosure and call to action in dietary supplement advertising.

The purpose of this review paper was identifying barriers to the use of telemedicine systems in primary health-care individual level among professionals.

This study used Scopus and PubMed databases for scientific records identification. A systematic review of the literature structured by PRISMA guidelines was conducted on 37 included papers published between 2009 and 2019. A qualitative approach was used to synthesize insights into using telemedicine by primary care professionals.

Three barriers were identified and classified: system quality, data quality and service quality barriers. System complexity in terms of usability, system unreliability, security and privacy concerns, lack of integration and inflexibility of systems-in-use are related to system quality. Data quality barriers are data inaccuracy, data timeliness issues, data conciseness concerns and lack of data uniqueness. Finally, service reliability concerns, lack of technical support and lack of user training have been categorized as service quality barriers.

This review identified and mapped emerging themes of barriers to the use of telemedicine systems. This paper also through a new conceptualization of telemedicine use from perspectives of the primary care professionals contributes to informatics literature and system usage practices.

Using data from a continuous and ongoing cross-sectional web survey on hospitalisation service experiences in two Italian regions, the authors used multilevel and multivariate logistic regression models to identify factors related to users' demographics, emotional and informative support, technical and physical aspects of the provision, influencing satisfaction and willingness-to-recommend, before and during a crisis.

The value-in-use, defined in terms of a positive or negative value given by the experience with services, can be evaluated by users and influenced by the context of provision. The authors tested whether and how the value-in-use of services changed in a context of crisis. This study is applied to the healthcare sector during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, by evaluating the impact of the pandemic on hospitalisation experience.

Overall, analyses of 8,712 questionnaires found a greater value after the pandemic spread. In a time of crisis, technical and informative aspects of care were found to be most valued by patients that may recognise the extraordinary professionalism of workers during the crisis.

This study empirically suggests that context can affect the evaluation of value-in-use by patients during unprecedented circumstances, producing additional value-in-context.

These findings imply that during critical periods where there is less scope for expressions of gratitude and appreciation towards front-line workers, user-reported data can be used for motivating professionals and increase resilience. These results reiterate the need to continue collecting and reporting the service users' voices, including as activity within plans for managing challenging situations.

The level of healthcare system distress, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, positively affects patients' propensity to recommend, which the authors suggest is driven by healthcare services' feelings of reverse compassion. These findings imply that during critical periods where there is less scope for expressions of gratitude and appreciation towards front-line workers, user-reported data can be used for motivating professionals and increase resilience, which can have positive social implications. These results reiterate the need to continue collecting and reporting the service users' voices, including as activity within plans for managing challenging situations.

Research based on the intersection of theoretical and empirical research regarding value-in-use, value-in-context and service quality measured through user experience is scarce, in particular in the healthcare sector. The authors' findings set the direction for future research on the influence of context on value creation and value creation's perception by users, on the concept of reverse compassion and on reverse compassion's impact on organisational well-being, particularly in times of crisis.