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

While patient-driven online health communities (OHCs) have long been a fixture of the online healthcare landscape, physician-driven OHCs are becoming increasingly popular. Drawing on the persuasive communication literature, this study takes a physician’s perspective to examine how physicians signal their professional expertise and caring demeanor through online responses and influence patient medical service subscription decisions. By analyzing textual and image data collected from a leading physician-driven OHC, we found that regarding message framing, caring messages (emotional appeals) significantly boosted subscriptions among chronically ill patients, while technical messages (rational appeals) did not. The results were found to be the opposite for source framing: authoritative reputation (rational appeals) had a significant effect but smiling images (emotional appeals) did not. The results also punctuate the importance of congruence between message and source and between text and image in both rational and emotional appeals. Our findings make significant theoretical contributions and offer guidance for physicians seeking to optimize their OHC participation to enhance chronic disease care.