The impact and success of health-care-related social media usage – pre- and post-COVID analysis

Purpose The overall purpose of this empirically validated research paper is to determine factors that impact the success of using social media channels by consumers for salvaging health-care information by integrating constructs of the information system (IS) success model, e-health service quality and perceived usefulness during pre- and post-COVID settings. Design/methodology/approach Online survey responses of 243 consumers for study 1 and 184 consumers for study 2 were validated using factor analysis to understand consumers’ attitudes toward social media use. Constructs from existing literature and theories have been extracted to develop the proposed model, which has been empirically validated through statistical tests. A paired-samples t-test was also conducted to compare the customer satisfaction mean of pre- and post-COVID conditions; and word of mouth (WOM) for pre- and post-COVID conditions. Findings The outcome of this study supports that service quality and information quality conclusively influence customer satisfaction of consumers for health-care information among respondents pre COVID, and service quality, perceived usefulness and information quality conclusively affect customer satisfaction of consumers for health-care information among respondents post COVID. Furthermore, the e-health service quality contributes noteworthy in shaping the consumers’ satisfaction with social media usage for study 2 and information quality for study 1. A paired-samples t-test revealed that the two groups behaved significantly differently for customer satisfaction and WOM in the two groups. Research limitations/implications At prima facie, this study has a geographical limitation for the sample size. The respondents for the online research were from the urban suburb of Bengaluru, India. The data collection has not focused on any precise social media channel. Practical implications Identification and comprehension of constructs that influence consumer satisfaction related to social media usage for health-care information can assist health-care managers in developing appropriate strategies for consumers to maximize social media usage. Moreover, this study provides an insight into the consumer’s perception of using social media channels for seeking health-care information. Originality/value This study recommends an empirically validated model for the success of social media in a consumer setting for the health-care scenario. This research is a unique attempt that inspects social media satisfaction by adapting constructs from existing theories of the IS success model, e-health service quality and perceived usefulness.