Understanding Online Health Information Use: The Case of People with Physical Disabilities

摘要

In this paper, we study the online health information use behavior of people with physical disabilities. Drawing on rational choice theory and IS success model, we develop a contextualized research model to explain how individuals' level of physical disability moderates the effects of object- and outcome-based beliefs. We empirically tested the model with survey data from 243 online users with physical disabilities. The results show that perceived benefit enhances, whereas perceived risk reduces, online health information use. Information quality and system quality increase perceived benefit and mitigate perceived risk. In addition, we found that accuracy, completeness, currency, and transparency of online health information predict information quality, whereas accessibility, navigability, and readability of online health information predict system quality. More importantly, we found that physical disability weakens the effect of information quality on perceived risk, strengthens the effect of system quality on perceived risk, and strengthens the effect of perceived benefits on information use. This research contributes to the IS literature by focusing on the minority group of people with physical disabilities and providing an in-depth understanding of their online health information use behavior.