Title: Patients' sociability and usability experience in online health communities: impact on attitudes towards the healthcare organisation and its services

Authors: Priya Nambisan, David Gustafson, Suzanne Pingree, Robert Hawkins

Addresses: Department of Health Policy, Management and Behaviour, School of Public Health, University at Albany, SUNY, 1 University Place, Rensselaer, NY 12205, USA. ' Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 4109 Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706-1572, USA. ' Department of Life Sciences Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 120 Agricultural Journalism, 440 Henry Mall, Madison, WI 53706, USA. ' Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vilas Communication Hall, 821 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706, USA

Abstract: This paper reports on an exploratory study that examined the impact of patients| sociability and usability experience in an online health community and their impact on their attitude towards the healthcare organisation (HCO) that runs the online community. The study data was collected from the online community of a healthcare programme called Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) run by the Centre for Health Enhancement Support Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The study results validate the hypotheses and show that it is important for any HCO to evaluate patients| sociability and usability experience in its online health community since the experience can impact patients| attitudes towards the HCO and its services.

Keywords: online health communities; virtual communities; discussion forums; web-based communities; online communities; online community experience; OCE; sociability experience; usability experience; patient attitudes; healthcare organisations; healthcare services; service delivery; knowledge creation; knowledge transfer; interaction experiences; health support groups.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2010.035841

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2010 Vol.6 No.4, pp.395 - 409

Published online: 05 Oct 2010 *

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