| Summary: | Health information seeking (HIS) is the purposeful acquisition of health-related information to satisfy a health information need. HIS is critical to personal health, medical treatment, and public health. Consumers may also practice this behaviour to understand the diagnosis, assess treatment options, evaluate risks and prevent diseases. Limited attention has been devoted to challenges surrounding HIS, focusing on eHealth systems' quality and integrating quality dimensions (information quality, system quality, and service quality) in the research model. The eHealth system should be designed to exhibit features that enable faster and more accessible information seeking and retrieval. It also must provide a knowledge base of health information and medicine and consistently enable information discussion and communication between consumers and health experts. Providing an eHealth system with features supporting this HIS process will improve system application and increase system utilisation.
This dissertation proposes a model for examining the critical features of the adoption and quality of online HIS in an eHealth environment. The model exploits the relationships from three well-known models, namely, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, the DeLone and McLean Information System Success Model (ISSM), and the Health Belief Model (HEM). The integration of these three models provides fundamental features for eHealth systems, leading to effective and quality online HIS that enhances the eHealth environment for consumers. The model engages twelve components: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence, perceived disease threat, perceived barriers, self-efficacy, information quality, system quality. service quality, behavioural intention, and technology use. Preliminary data collection, expert review, a pilot study, and exploratory factor analysis are conducted to develop, assess, and verify the initial conceptual model. Then, the field study is executed to investigate the relationships between the components. The structure of the factor loadings and intercorrelations for all items and dimensions is examined using the confirmatory factor analysis. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) is employed to estimate the parameters involved and test the hypotheses regarding the interrelationships among the components in the research model.
This empirical study indicates that most components have positive and significant relationships towards behavioural intention and technology use. The findings revealed that 10 out of 14 hypotheses are supported. Performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and self-efficacy accounted for the variance in intentions to seek health information in eHealth systems. Other findings suggest that system quality has a stronger influence in terms of the system's performance expectancy and effort expectancy compared to information quality and service quality. A prototype is developed to translate the model into a working system as a proof-of-concept by implementing the proposed components into appropriate functionalities and relevant technological approaches. Evaluation of the prototype using usability testing and questionnaire discloses that the prototype developed benefits users and achieves the system goals as intended. The overall research findings demonstrate that the research model is appropriate and significant in supporting consumers to seek quality online health information.
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