Examining Online Health Community Users' Information Adoption Intention

Abstract

Due to the doubt on information credibility, users often hesitate to adopt the health information posted on online health communities (OHC). This may undermine the sustainable development of OHC. The purpose of this research is to identify the determinants of OHC users’ information adoption intention. The results indicated that both information factors and social interaction affect the adoption intention. Information factors include argument quality and source credibility, whereas social interaction includes perceived similarity and familiarity. The results imply that OHC need to ensure information quality and support users’ interaction in order to facilitate their information adoption.