Improving cancer survivors’ e-health literacy via online health communities (OHCs): a social support perspective

Seeking or contributing? Evidence of knowledge sharing behaviours in promoting patients’ perceived value of online health communities

“…Our empirical results indicate that health knowledge seeking and knowledge contributing behaviours positively influence patients’ perceived value of OHCs. This finding is similar to prior conclusions that knowledge seeking and knowledge contributing behaviours enabled individuals to obtain a higher level of perceived value 56 and that using OHCs helped patients obtain necessary information to improve their health conditions 9,28,29,43 . In addition, the coefficient of health knowledge seeking is greater than the coefficient of health knowledge contributing, indicating that health knowledge seeking activities contribute more to patients’ perceived value than knowledge contributing activities do.…”

“…Since meeting users' expectations and enriching their health outcomes are critical for users' continuous use of OHCs and the sustainability of OHCs, 7,19,20,54 recent studies have begun to explore the consequences of their health knowledge sharing behaviours, for example the impacts of informational support in OHCs on patients' health conditions, health attitude and e-health literacy. 9,28,29,43,55 Although engaging in OHCs can improve users' perception of value, 29,56 few studies have examined the impacts of patients' health knowledge sharing behaviours and other factors on their perceived value of OHCs. This study aimed to address the above gap.…”

“…OHC use therefore positively promotes users' health outcomes such as health conditions, health attitude and e-health literacy. 28,29,43 As a kind of health outcome, users' perceived value is a crucial antecedent for users' satisfaction with OHCs and also their continuous use of OHCs. 44,45 In this paper, we will clarify how users' perceived value In order to address the above gap, we adopted social cognitive theory (SCT) as theoretical foundation.…”

“…Knowledge contributors also can obtain new knowledge because they have to understand other questions and then combine different knowledge to address those questions 9,29 ; this process could help them to create new knowledge. OHC use therefore positively promotes users’ health outcomes such as health conditions, health attitude and e‐health literacy 28,29,43 . As a kind of health outcome, users’ perceived value is a crucial antecedent for users’ satisfaction with OHCs and also their continuous use of OHCs 44,45 .…”

Exploring the Factors Influencing Consumers to Voluntarily Reward Free Health Service Contributors in Online Health Communities: Empirical Study

“…Such services emerge in online health communities (OHCs)-a special kind of online forums that links health care professionals and normal users [6][7][8][9][10]. In OHCs, health care professionals and consumers collaborate with each other to generate new health knowledge, such as disease symptoms and routine daily care discussions, health self-management experiences, or suggestions on treatments [5,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. The generated knowledge will become available to the public and can be freely accessed by every consumer on online SE platforms [20,21].…”