Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jul 6, 2021
Date Accepted: Apr 14, 2022
The Influence of Perceived Social Presence on the Willingness to Communicate in Mobile Medical Consultations: An Experimental Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
With the rise of online healthcare service, there is growing discussion on the relationship between physicians and patients online. Yet few researchers have paid attention to patients’ perception of social presence especially its influence on their willingness to communicate.
Objective:
To investigate the influence of perceived social presence on the willingness to communicate in online mobile medical consultations.
Methods:
Participants living in Yunnan province during the period of middle-to-high risk of COVID-19 infection were recruited from the internet. They were assigned randomly into two groups interacting with a virtual physician presenting high and low levels of social presence respectively and then they were asked to fill out a questionnaire. Based on the results of the questionnaire, the study constructs a model evaluating the relationship among participants’ perceived social presence (PSP), communication apprehension (CA), self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) and the willingness to communicate about health (WTCH) in the computer-mediated communication between virtual physicians and patients.
Results:
In total 206 valid samples were gathered and 88.83% of them are between 18-44 years old, which assimilates the main population engaging in online health consultation in China. Independent T-test shows that there is significant difference between the PSP of the two groups (P=.04), indicating a successful manipulation of social presence. The total effect of PSP on WTCH is .56 (P<.001) and among which 74.37% is direct effect (P<.001). Among the indirect effects between PSP and WTCH, the mediating effect of SPCC accounts for 68.75% (P<.001) and the sequential mediating effect of CA-SPCC accounts for 19.24% (P<.001), while the mediating effect of CA alone is not significant (P=.08).
Conclusions:
Beside the direct effect of PSP on WTCH, the mediating effect of SPCC as well as the sequential mediating effect of both CA and SPCC are significant between PSP and WTCH in online mobile medical consultation. Clinical Trial: The experiment was approved by the Institional Review Board for Human Research Protections of Shanghai Jiao Tong University on March 23rd, 2021 (H2021099I).
Citation
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