Social support and health information disclosure in online health communities: Three moderating roles

Abstract

With a wealth of health information available, online health communities (OHCs) are increasingly popular. Users with similar health problems are actively participating in OHCs to seek or share health information. However, the proliferation of personal health information also raises privacy concerns. According to privacy calculus theory and social exchange theory, this study investigates how social support impacts health information disclosure. We explore the moderating role of privacy concerns (including privacy control, information sensitivity, and privacy literacy). Our study conducted an online experiment with 940 participants. The results demonstrated that social support significantly increases OHCs users’ health information disclosure intention. Privacy control from OHCs played a positive moderating role. However, information sensitivity and privacy literacy of users played negative moderating roles. This deepens the understanding of the effects of social support on health information disclosure in different conditions.