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BackgroundThe internet has become a major mean for acquiring health information; however, Web-based health information is of mixed quality and may markedly affect patients’ health-related behavior and decisions. According to the social information processing theory, patients’ trust in their physicians may potentially change due to patients’ health-information-seeking behavior. Therefore, it is important to identify the relationship between internet health information and patient compliance from the perspective of trust.ObjectiveThe objective of our study was to investigate the effects of the quality and source of internet health information on patient compliance using an empirical study based on the social information processing theory and social exchange theory.MethodsA Web-based survey involving 336 valid participants was conducted in China. The study included independent variables (internet health information quality and source of information), 2 mediators (cognition-based trust [CBT] and affect-based trust [ABT]), 1 dependent variable (patient compliance), and 3 control variables (gender, age, and job). All variables were measured using multiple-item scales from previously validated instruments, and confirmative factor analysis as well as structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses.ResultsThe questionnaire response rate was 77.16% (375/486), validity rate was 89.6% (336/375), and reliability and validity were acceptable. We found that the quality and source of internet health information affect patient compliance through the mediation of CBT and ABT. In addition, internet health information quality has a stronger influence on patient compliance than the source of information. However, CBT does not have any direct effect on patient compliance, but it directly affects ABT and then indirectly impacts patient compliance. Therefore, the effect of ABT seems stronger than that of CBT. We found an unexpected, nonsignificant relationship between the source of internet health information and ABT.ConclusionsFrom patients’ perspective, internet health information quality plays a stronger role than its source in impacting their trust in physicians and the consequent compliance with physicians. Therefore, patient compliance can be improved by strengthening the management of internet health information quality. The study findings also suggest that physicians should focus on obtaining health information from health websites, thereby expanding their understanding of patients’ Web-based health-information-seeking preferences, and enriching their knowledge structure to show their specialization and reliability in the communication with patients. In addition, the mutual demonstration of care and respect in the communication between physicians and patients is important in promoting patients’ ABT in their physicians.

Background In China, the utilization of medical resources is tense, and most hospitals are highly congested because of the large population and uneven distribution of medical resources. Online health communities (OHCs) play an important role in alleviating hospital congestions, thereby improving the utilization of medical resources and relieving medical resource shortages. OHCs have positive effects on physician-patient relationships and health outcomes. Moreover, as one of the main ways for patients to seek health-related information in OHCs, physician-patient communication may affect patient compliance in various ways. In consideration of the inevitable development of OHCs, although they have several shortcomings, identifying how physician-patient communication can impact patient compliance is important to improve patients’ health outcomes through OHCs. Objective This study aimed to investigate the impact of physician-patient communication on patient compliance in OHCs through the mediation of the perceived quality of internet health information, decision-making preference, and physician-patient concordance, using an empirical study based on the self-determination theory. Methods A research model was established, including 1 independent variable (physician-patient communication), 3 mediators (perceived quality of internet health information, decision-making preference, and physician-patient concordance), 1 dependent variable (patient compliance), and 4 control variables (age, gender, living area, and education level). Furthermore, a Web-based survey involving 423 valid responses was conducted in China to collect data, and structural equation modeling and partial least squares were adopted to analyze data and test the hypotheses. Results The questionnaire response rate was 79.2% (487/615) and the validity rate was 86.9% (423/487); reliability and validity are acceptable. The communication between physicians and patients in OHCs positively affects patient compliance through the mediation of the perceived quality of internet health information, decision-making preference, and physician-patient concordance. Moreover, physician-patient communication exhibits similar impacts on the perceived quality of internet health information, decision-making preference, and physician-patient concordance. Patients’ decision-making preference shows the weakest impact on patient compliance compared with the other 2 mediators. Ultimately, all 3 mediators play a partially mediating role between physician-patient communication and patient compliance. Conclusions We conclude that physician-patient communication in OHCs exhibits a positive impact on patient compliance; thus, patient compliance can be improved by guiding physician-patient communication in OHCs. Furthermore, our findings suggest that physicians can share high-quality health information with patients, discuss benefits, risks, and costs of tre...

In respect to the multi-attribute group decision making (MAGDM) problems in which the evaluated value of each attribute is in the form of q-rung orthopair fuzzy numbers (q-ROFNs), a new approach of MAGDM is developed. Firstly, a new aggregation operator, called the partitioned Maclaurin symmetric mean (PMSM) operator, is proposed to deal with the situations where the attributes are partitioned into different parts and there are interrelationships among multiple attributes in same part whereas the attributes in different parts are not related. Some desirable properties of PMSM are investigated. Then, in order to aggregate the q-rung orthopair fuzzy information, the PMSM is extended to q-rung orthopair fuzzy sets (q-ROFSs) and two q-rung orthopair fuzzy partitioned Maclaurin symmetric mean (q-ROFPMSM) operators are developed. To eliminate the negative influence of unreasonable evaluation values of attributes on aggregated result, we further propose two q-rung orthopair fuzzy power partitioned Maclaurin symmetric mean (q-ROFPPMSM) operators, which combine the PMSM with the power average (PA) operator within q-ROFSs. Finally, a numerical instance is provided to illustrate the proposed approach and a comparative analysis is conducted to demonstrate the advantage of the proposed approach.

The Pythagorean fuzzy set as an extension of the intuitionistic fuzzy set characterized by membership and nonmembership degrees has been introduced recently. Accordingly, the square sum of the membership and nonmembership degrees is a maximum of one. The Pythagorean fuzzy set has been previously applied to multiattribute group decision-making. This study develops a few aggregation operators for fusing the Pythagorean fuzzy information, and a novel approach to decision-making is introduced based on the proposed operators. First, we extend the generalized Bonferroni mean to the Pythagorean fuzzy environment and introduce the generalized Pythagorean fuzzy Bonferroni mean and the generalized Pythagorean fuzzy Bonferroni geometric mean. Second, a new generalization of the Bonferroni mean, namely, the dual generalized Bonferroni mean, is proposed by considering the shortcomings of the generalized Bonferroni mean. Furthermore, we investigate the dual generalized Bonferroni mean in the Pythagorean fuzzy sets and introduce the dual generalized Pythagorean fuzzy Bonferroni mean and dual generalized Pythagorean fuzzy Bonferroni geometric mean. Third, a novel approach to multiattribute group decision-making based on proposed operators is proposed. Lastly, a numerical instance is provided to illustrate the validity of the new approach.

Considering decision makers (DMs) maybe hesitant among a set of values when determining the membership and non-membership degrees in a q-rung orthopair fuzzy environment, the q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy sets (q-RDHFS) were proposed. However, in practical multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) problems, instated of crisp numbers, DMs prefer to use interval values to represent the membership and non-membership degrees. Motivated by the interval-valued dual hesitant fuzzy sets (IVDHFS), this paper proposes the concept of interval-valued q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy sets (IVq-RDHFSs). First, the definition of IVq-RDHFS, operations and comparison method of interval-valued q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy elements (IVq-RDHFEs) are presented. Second, to effectively aggregate IVq-RDHFEs, a set of new aggregation operators are proposed, namely, the interval-valued q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy Muirhead mean (IVq-RDHFMM) operator, the interval-valued q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy weighted Muirhead mean (IVq-RDHFWMM) operator, the interval-valued q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy dual Muirhead mean (IVq-RDHFDMM) operator and the interval-valued q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy dual weighted Muirhead mean (IVq-RDHFDWMM) operator. Third, a new MADM approach is proposed based on the proposed operators. We verify the new method through an illustrative example. The superiority and advantages of the proposed method are also discussed.INDEX TERMS Interval-valued q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy, Muirhead mean, interval-valued q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy Muirhead mean, multi-attribute decision-making.

Recently proposed q-rung orthopair fuzzy set (q-ROFS) is a powerful and effective tool to describe fuzziness, uncertainty and vagueness. The prominent feature of q-ROFS is that the sum of membership and non-membership degrees is allowed to be greater than the one with the sum of qth power of the membership degree and qth power of the non-membership degree, which is equal to or less than 1. This characteristic makes the q-ROFS more powerful and useful than intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) and Pythagorean fuzzy set (PFS). The aim of this paper is to develop some aggregation operators for fusing qrung orthopair fuzzy information. As the Muirhead mean (MM) is considered as a useful aggregation technology which can capture interrelationships among all aggregated arguments, we extend the MM to q-rung orthopair fuzzy environment and propose a family of q-rung orthopair fuzzy Muirhead mean operators. Moreover, we investigate some desirable properties and special cases of the proposed operators. Further, we apply the proposed operators to solve multi-attribute group decision making (MAGDM) problems. Finally, a numerical instance as well as some comparative analysis are provided to demonstrate the validity and superiorities of the proposed method.

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