Understanding Online Health Community Users’ Payment Intention

Abstract

Users often lack the motivation to pay for health information and services in online health communities (OHC). This may undermine the sustainable development of OHC. Integrating both perspectives of perceived value and trust, this research identified the factors affecting OHC users’ payment intention. The results indicated that payment intention is influenced by both functional value and trust. Functional value includes price utility and information quality, whereas trust includes trust in doctors and trust in community. We did not find the effect of emotional value and social value on payment intention. The results imply that OHC need to create a trustworthy climate and offer utilitarian value to users in order to facilitate their payment intention.