Value co-creation in health care services : What drives patients to perform online health information search (OHIS) and what are the outcomes of this participatory behavior ?

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, health care services have undergone various transformations. The patient is no longer seen as passive recipient of service, but rather as an active actor. This change is largely driven by technological advancements such as the Internet. Patients want to be informed in order to play an active role and thus, perform Online Health Information Search (OHIS). Within service research, OHIS is defined as a participatory behaviour and customer co-creation activity beyond the encounter with the physician. OHIS is a prevalent trend of high practical relevance. Although health care and customer co-creation activities are key research priorities for service theory, knowledge about OHIS is scarce and researchers call to take this current trend into account. It remains unclear what drives patients to perform OHIS and what the outcomes of this behaviour are. This is where the current study contributes. The study em-pirically tests the hypothesized relationships between OHIS and its drivers as well as its out-comes in a German general population. Data of 263 respondents was collected via an online survey and analysed by using a structural equation model. Findings suggest that OHIS is mainly driven by patients’ health anxiety and their overall information needs, while the per-ceived quality of online health information seems less relevant. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that patients’ adherence is mainly not affected by OHIS. In contrast, the out-comes distress and mistrust of the medical physician are influenced by the co-creation activity. In addition, the mistrust of the physician negatively impacts on patients’ adherence. Moreo-ver, findings show that patients do rarely assess the quality of online health information by checking quality criteria. This study extends previous research on patients’ participation and value co-creation activities beyond the encounter by shedding light on potential drivers and outcomes of OHIS. In addition, these findings point out important implications for health care providers and policy makers.