Continue staying in online health platforms or not: the moderating role of threat appraisal

PurposeThis study aims to study the mechanisms and conditions of users' intention to continue to use online health platforms from an information technology (IT) affordance perspective.Design/methodology/approachb This research proposes that a critical affordance effect on an online health platform, users' intention to continue the use of the platform, is affected by five platform affordances via two actualized affordances (i.e. perceived benefits (PBs) and online engagement (OE)). Perceived health threat moderates the effect generated by affordance actualization. A dataset involving 409 users from the “Ping An Health” platform was collected through an online survey and analyzed to validate the research hypotheses.FindingsThe data analysis results confirm that the proposed online health platform affordances affect users' PBs and OE, which influence users' intentions to continue using the platform. Perceived threats (perceived vulnerability (PVU) and perceived severity (PSE)) moderate the relationship between PBs and continuance intention (CI) and between OE and CI.Practical implicationsThe research provides important recommendations for online health platform designers to develop IT affordances that can support users' needs for healthcare services.Originality/valueLimited studies investigated why users continue participating in online diagnosis and treatment. This study provides a new perspective to expand the affordance framework by combining technology features and user health behavior. The study also emphasizes the importance of perceived threats in IT use.