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The impact factors investigated in online health information-seeking research in the last decade_
| Type | Overseas researchers | Chinese researchers | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Influencing factor | Resource | Influencing factor | Resource | |
| Demographic | Gender | Cotten & Gupta (2004); | Personal psychological factor and | Zhu & Deng (2015) |
| characteristics | Yun & Park (2010) | implementation cost | ||
| Race | Yi, Stvilia, & Mon (2012); Ramanadhan & Viswanath (2006); | Cognitive ability, knowledge, and experience | Sun, Wang, & Cao (2015) | |
| Rooks et al. (2012) | ||||
| Education | Ramanadhan & Viswanath (2006); | Gender | Wang (2013) | |
| Lemire et al. (2008) | Age | Wang (2013) | ||
| Education | Wang (2013) | |||
| Income | Wang (2013) | |||
| Income | Ramanadhan & Viswanath (2006); | Health condition | Zhou & Cai (2014) | |
| Zhao (2009) | ||||
| Internet use level | Neumark et al. (2013) | |||
| Health condition | Shaw et al. (2008) | |||
| Disability level | Liang, Xue, & Chase (2011) | |||
| Information | Perceived usefulness | Kim(2015) | Information demand satisfaction | Mo & Deng (2014) |
| resources | Perceived ease of use | Ajuwon & Popoola (2015); | Reality satisfaction | Mo & Deng (2014) |
| Zhang (2011) | Internet interaction and | Mo & Deng (2014) | ||
| risk perception | ||||
| Trust level of information | Yun & Park (2010) | Ease of use of search tools and | Zhou & Cai (2014) | |
| health website construction | ||||
| Credibility of website | Lemire et al. (2008) | Information factor | Zhu & Deng (2015) | |
| Information quality awareness | Xiao et al. (2014) | |||
| Social factors | Subjective norm | Chau & Hu (2002); | Social factor | Zhu & Deng (2015) |
| Zhang (2011) | Social support | Mo & Deng (2014) | ||
| Other factors | Self-efficacy and information anxiety | Lim et al. (2011) | Task type | Zhou & Cai (2014) |
| Users’ interaction and emotional | Hether, Murphy, & Valente (2014) | Health self-efficacy and | Mo & Deng (2014) | |
| support | health consciousness | |||
Reliability and correlation coefficient_
| Variable | Mean | SD | alpha | AVE | PU | PEU | SN | UPS | SPS | UI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PU | 3.3002 | 0.68183 | 0.789 | 0.610 | 1 | |||||
| PEU | 3.3879 | 0.71350 | 0.796 | 0.513 | 0.235 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 1 | ||||
| SN | 2.8255 | 0.76891 | 0.805 | 0.636 | 0.376 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 0.287 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 1 | |||
| UPS | 3.2056 | 0.92425 | 0.851 | 0.536 | 0.231 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | − 0.030 | 0.099 | 1 | ||
| SPS | 2.6402 | 0.88491 | 0.717 | 0.830 | 0.371 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 0.080 | 0.326 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 0.338 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 1 | |
| UI | 3.1511 | 0.78624 | 0.814 | 0.691 | 0.608 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 0.217 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 0.472 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 0.248 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 0.438 p < 0.01 testing the null hypothesis of zero correlation. | 1 |
Hierarchical regression results for user intention_
| Variable | Step 1 | Step 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Step 1: Main effects | ||
| SPS | 0.217 p<0.001. | 0.934 p<0.001. |
| PU | 0.432 p<0.001. | 0.388 |
| PEU | 0.128 p<0.05. | 0.355 p<0.05. |
| SN | 0.216 p<0.001. | 0.696 p<0.001. |
| Step 2: Moderations | ||
| SPS × PU | 0.024 | |
| SPS × PEU | − 0.083 | |
| SPS × SN | − 0.179 p<0.05. | |
| R2 | 0.481 | 0.514 |
| Adjusted R2 | 0.471 | 0.496 |
| ΔR2 | 0.481 | 0.033 |
| ΔF | 44.323 p<0.001. | 4.195 p<0.01. |
Variable, measurement item, and source_
| Variable | Measurement item | Source |
|---|---|---|
| UPS | Most health problems that I am seeking on the Internet need to be solved immediately. | Zhang (2014) |
| Most health problems that I am seeking on the Internet are urgent. | ||
| SPS | Most health problems that I am seeking on the Internet are serious. | Zhang (2014) |
| When I meet with serious health problems, I tend to seek health | ||
| information online. | ||
| PU | I think using the Internet to seek health information can ease my anxiety | Davis (1989); |
| over personal heath. | Liang, Xue, & Chase (2011) | |
| I think using the Internet to seek health information can increase my | ||
| knowledge of health. | ||
| I think the health information online can solve my problems. | ||
| I think the health information online is useful. | ||
| PEU | I have no difficulties with the operation of health information websites. | Davis (1989); |
| I do not need to spend a lot of energy in using the Internet to seek health information. | Liang, Xue, & Chase (2011) | |
| Learning to use health information websites is easy for me. | ||
| Being familiar with the operation of websites makes it very easy for me | ||
| to find health information. | ||
| SN | Quite a few people around me will use the Internet to seek health information. | Ajzen (1985); |
| Chau & Hu (2001); | ||
| People who have influence on me think I should use the Internet to seek | Chau & Hu (2002) | |
| health information. | ||
| People who are important to me think I should use the Internet to seek | ||
| health information. | ||
| UI | I would like to use the Internet to seek health information. | Taylor & Todd (1995a); |
| I often seek health information on the Internet. | Taylor & Todd (1995b); | |
| I would recommend people around me to use the Internet to seek health information. | Bhattacherjee (2001) |
Factor loadings and cross loadings_
| PEU | PU | SN | UI | UPS | SPS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PEU3 | 0.864 | 0.099 | 0.021 | 0.114 | − 0.009 | 0.015 |
| PEU4 | 0.828 | 0.132 | 0.187 | − 0.023 | 0.018 | − 0.015 |
| PEU1 | 0.741 | − 0.161 | 0.124 | 0.233 | − 0.052 | 0.014 |
| PEU2 | 0.677 | 0.206 | 0.039 | − 0.033 | 0.007 | 0.049 |
| PU4 | 0.147 | 0.757 | 0.313 | 0.100 | − 0.024 | 0.023 |
| PU3 | 0.021 | 0.743 | 0.193 | 0.141 | 0.132 | 0.132 |
| PU2 | 0.066 | 0.726 | − 0.046 | 0.350 | 0.180 | 0.090 |
| PU1 | 0.139 | 0.631 | 0.037 | 0.318 | 0.016 | 0.174 |
| SN3 | 0.067 | 0.132 | 0.860 | 0.232 | 0.051 | 0.098 |
| SN2 | 0.048 | 0.083 | 0.855 | 0.247 | 0.056 | 0.096 |
| SN1 | 0.312 | 0.195 | 0.662 | − 0.009 | − 0.042 | 0.104 |
| UI2 | 0.031 | 0.308 | 0.198 | 0.760 | 0.126 | 0.164 |
| UI3 | 0.046 | 0.198 | 0.339 | 0.732 | 0.050 | 0.143 |
| UI1 | 0.213 | 0.366 | 0.075 | 0.704 | 0.082 | 0.116 |
| UPS2 | − 0.032 | 0.096 | − 0.001 | 0.041 | 0.915 | 0.143 |
| UPS1 | − 0.002 | 0.101 | 0.057 | 0.135 | 0.907 | 0.127 |
| SPS1 | 0.025 | 0.146 | 0.055 | 0.115 | 0.258 | 0.837 |
| SPS2 | 0.029 | 0.156 | 0.218 | 0.211 | 0.055 | 0.825 |
Demographic description_
| Descriptive variable | Item | Frequency | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sex | Male | 79 | 36.9% |
| Female | 135 | 63.1% | |
| Age | Under age 18 | 9 | 4.2% |
| 18–22 years old | 123 | 57.5% | |
| 23–28 years old | 78 | 36.4% | |
| More than 28 years old | 4 | 1.9% | |
| Education | Bachelor degree | 147 | 68.7% |
| Master degree | 58 | 27.1% | |
| Ph.D. | 9 | 4.2% | |
| Internet time per day | Within 1 hour | 14 | 6.5% |
| 1–4 hours | 124 | 57.9% | |
| 5–8 hours | 57 | 26.6% | |
| Above 8 hours | 19 | 8.9% | |
| Physical condition | Good health | 66 | 30.8% |
| Occasionally uncomfortable | 141 | 65.9% | |
| Often feeling unwell | 6 | 2.8% | |
| Suffering from a chronic disease | 1 | 0.5% |