Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Online Health Knowledge Acquisition On Health Outcome

Under the influence of the aging population,social urbanization and other factors,the number of chronic patients has risen sharply and the course of chronic diseases has also lengthened.In the Internet age,online health communities provide chronic patients with access to health knowledge,including professional and experience-based health knowledge.However,the existing online health communities in China are still unable to meet the growing information demand of chronic patients,and thus help them improve their health outcomes.Therefore,this article investigates the following two research questions:RQ1:What is the influence path of the health knowledge acquisition on health outcome of chronic patients?RQ2:In online health communities,what is the influence mechanism of online health information design patterns on the health beliefs of chronic patients?To answer RQ1,this paper uses China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)data of the year of 2013 and 2015 and takes hypertension patients as an example.Based on the health belief model,this paper investigates the influence path of the health knowledge acquisition on health outcome of chronic patients.Through data analysis and robust test of the multiple mediation model,it is found that health knowledge acquisition of chronic patients will have a positive effect on their health outcomes by the partial mediating factors-health belief and self-health management.To answer RQ2,this paper designs 2*2 intergroup laboratory experiment to investigate the influence mechanism of online health information design patterns on the health beliefs of chronic patients.By modifying the empowerment theory,this paper builds a model of online health information design patterns,including structured and unstructured online health information,experience-based and professional online health information,online health knowledge acquisition and health beliefs of chronic patients.After the two-factor factorial main effect and interaction effect test,this paper finds that the experience-based online health information has significant main effect on ease of understanding of the online health knowledge acquisition of chronic patients and on benefits.The main effects of structured online health information on the completeness and easy of understanding of online health knowledge acquisition of chronic patients are significant,too.The interaction effect between structured online health information and experience-based one is not significant.Through structural equation modeling and multi_group comparison,this paper finds that structured online health information can help increase online health knowledge acquisition of chronic patients,including completeness and ease of understanding,and thereby improve these patient’s health beliefs,including benefits and self-efficacy.Besides,this paper also finds that the positive effect of structured online health information on the completeness of online health knowledge acquisition in experience-based online health information is stronger than that of professional online health information.The innovation of this paper is to use study one and two to investigate and verify the impact of online health information design patterns on the health outcome of chronic patients in online health communities.The specific innovation is as the following two points:Taking hypertension patients as an example,this article uses second-hand data to establish and prove the influence path of health knowledge acquisition on health outcome.Former scholars mainly use questionnaires or laboratory experiments to investigate the influence path of health knowledge acquisition on health outcome.This paper first uses the public data whose participants covers 150 county-level units and 450 village-level units.The findings in the paper further verifies the prevalence of positive effects of health knowledge acquisition on health outcome and the influence path.This research findings not only fill the gap of the theoretical deficiencies in this field in China,but also provide policy basis and suggestions for the government to make more effective policies for prevention and treatment of chronic diseases and to find out specific prevention and treatment methods.Based on design science,this paper uses Axure and laboratory experiment to build a virtual online health community in order to investigate the impact of different online health information design patterns on the health beliefs of chronic patients.This study adds the research of antecedents of online health knowledge acquisition and the research of the improvement of using effect of online health communities and provides research ideas for other researcher to further study other antecedents of online health knowledge acquisition.In addition,the findings of this study provide theory basis and suggestions for the improvement of online health information design in online health communities.The shortcoming of this paper is that it ignores some moderating factors.For example,the same health knowledge acquisition may have different effects on health beliefs of chronic patients from different professions;External factors such as work intensity can affect the self-efficacy and self-health management of chronic patients,and ultimately affect their health outcomes.In conclusion,the findings of this paper provide the government with the theoretical basis of prevention and treatment of chronic disease.In the Internet age,the government should not only use traditional ways to improve the health knowledge acquisition of the society.They should also actively promote online health education activities through the convenience and rapidity of the Internet which is also not limited to time,space,and social status.At the same time,this paper also provides suggestions for the improvement of online health communities.Online health communities that focus on sharing experience health information can use structured information collection channels and update and share this structured information timely,which can help improve patient users’ perception of completeness of health knowledge and their health beliefs.