The Impact of Joining a Team on the Initial Trust in Online Physicians

Abstract

Introduction: Trust is a major challenge for the online market and this is especially the case for e-consultation platforms. Research that promotes online physician trust is highly desirable. In this study, we focus on whether joining a team led by a well-known physician will increase physician trust and what team characteristics will affect this trust. Materials and Methods: Brand extension theory is applied to the healthcare context to explain the impact of joining a team on physician trust. Specifically, both team strength and team similarity are hypothesized to have the main effects. In addition, team size is hypothesized to have a moderating effect. A 2 × 2 × 2 experiment was conducted to test the proposed research model. Results: The results indicated that joining a team would significantly increase physician trust (p < 0.001). Both team strength (p < 0.001) and team similarity (p < 0.001) had positive impacts on physician trust. In addition, a larger team size resulted in a reduced positive effect of team strength on physician trust (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Joining a physician team is an effective and low-cost method to address the initial trust problem of unknown online physicians.

What influences patients' willingness to choose in online health consultation? An empirical study with PLS–SEM

“…Another study explored the influence of perceived usefulness of online health information and service, as well as offline patient-physician interactions, on patients' trust in online health consultation (Peng et al, 2020). Research also suggests patients' initial trust in a physician providing online services can be significantly increased if the latter joins a team of physicians (Li et al, 2020). Hong et al (2018) showed that patients' online trust has a significant positive influence on offline trust.…”