The Trust in Online Discussion Forums and How they Influence Patients' Intention to Adopt Medical Tourism Services

Demand for medical tourism services originates from lack of health care options locally, increasingly healthcare cost, and improvements in healthcare quality in other countries. Many potential users are anxious about the quality of doctor and facility, as well as other issues (e.g. language barriers, confusion about procedure, and legality). As a result, many potential medical tourists rely on the use of online discussion forums in the decision-making process by seeking useful information and interacting with members who experienced or have the same needs for care abroad. A survey is conducted to collect data from 223 discussion threads in top 3 online discussion forums ranked by 80 participants. Data analysis results show that trust in the use of online discussion forums can help foster trust in hospital and doctor, it has no direct influence on their intention to adopt medical tourism services. Improving trust in doctoral and hospital cannot necessarily help increase the intention of users to adopt these services. Future research may want to seek other important factors such as social influence to help increase the intention of users in adopting medical tourism services.