Persuading Chronically Ill Patients to Subscribe to Medical Services in Physician-Driven Online Health Communities

Physician-driven online health communities (OHCs) have gained popularity. Drawing on the persuasive communication literature, this study takes a physician’s perspective to examine how physicians signal their professional expertise and caring attitudes through online responses and influence patient medical service subscription decisions. Analyzing textual and image data collected from a leading physician-driven OHC, we find that caring messages (messages in emotional appeals) significantly boost subscriptions among chronically ill patients, while technical messages (rational appeals) do not. The results are opposite in source framing: authoritative reputation (sources in rational appeals) instead has a significant effect, but smiling images (emotional appeals) do not. The results also indicate the importance of congruence between messages and sources, as well as between texts and images, in both rational and emotional appeals. Our findings make significant theoretical contributions and offer guidance for enhancing chronic disease care.