Consumers' willingness to purchase online mental health services

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct effects of eHealth literacy, perceived competence, perceived electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) credibility and price perception on consumers' willingness to purchase online mental health services. This study also examines the mediating role of perceived information quality on the eHealth literacy-consumers' willingness to purchase online mental health services relationship and the moderating roles of perceived eWOM credibility and price perception on the perceived competence-consumers' willingness to purchase online mental health services relationship. Design/methodology/approach Based on an extensive literature review, a conceptual model was developed. The research design was cross-sectional. A total of 400 respondents participated in the self-administered survey. After discarding some questionnaires due to incompleteness and lack of variance, a total of 367 responses was used in final data analysis. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the proposed model. Findings eHealth literacy, perceived competence, perceived eWOM credibility and price perception were found to have significant positive direct effects on consumers' willingness to purchase online mental health services. Perceived information quality was found to have a significant partial mediating effect on the eHealth literacy-consumers' willingness to purchase online mental health services relationship. Both perceived eWOM credibility and price perception were found to have significant positive moderating effects on the perceived competence-consumers' willingness to purchase online mental health services relationship. Originality/value Studies concerning online mental health services from a marketing or business perspective is almost non-existent. Therefore, this study contributes to the scarce literature in that context. This is the first study that has investigated how eHealth literacy, perceived information quality, perceived competence, perceived eWOM credibility and price perception influence consumers' willingness to purchase online mental health services.

The current state of research of word-of-mouth in the health care sector

“…Based on the model of WOM in the health care sector, Martin (2017b) defines medical factors, atmospheric factors, provider characteristics, sender characteristics and admission characteristics as influencing factors for the WOM sender. According to this classification, the following medical factors are confirmed by this literature analysis: qualification of physicians (Bishop et al, 2013), perceived quality (Kemp et al, 2014;Pentescu et al, 2014;Tu & Lauer, 2008), perceived competence, and perceived credibility (Mannan et al, 2019), service quality (Cao et al, 2017;Mannan et al, 2019;Sivakumar & Srinivasan, 2010), interpersonal skills (Cheng et al, 2003), and customer-oriented behavior (Kemp et al, 2014). Investigating hospitals, Sivakumar & Srinivasan (2010) point out that the reliability and assurance of the service quality mainly influence the behavioral outcomes of patients.…”

“…In contrast, Kitapci et al (2014) demonstrate that empathy and assurance are important antecedents of satisfaction, and satisfaction also interrelates with WOM communication and repurchase. Regarding provider characteristics, technical skills (Cheng et al, 2003), website quality (Mannan et al, 2019), price (Pentescu et al, 2014;Tu & Lauer, 2008), communication style and consultation time (Mehra, 2018), and provider referrals (Gombeski et al, 2015) are factors influencing WOM.…”

“…For instance, women are more willing to recommend a platform, and satisfaction with platforms decreases with age. Price perception, eHealth literacy, quality of reviews on social media and websites as well as website quality (Mannan et al, 2019) are important factors influencing the willingness to make use of online health services. Da Silva Terres et al (2014) investigated antecedents of clients' trust in low-and high-consequence decisions.…”

Do you reap what you sow? Driving mechanism of supply chain transparency on consumers' indirect reciprocity

“…Samu and Takács ( 2021 ) points out that credible information positively affects other people's decisions. Perceived information quality positively affects consumers' decision (Mannan et al, 2019 ). Trust is the mental mechanism through which influence arises (Cyr et al, 2010 ; Wang et al, 2016 ).…”

The Impact of Online Reviews on the Information Flows and Outcomes of Marketing Systems

“…Online reviews are considered more trustworthy information than company promotional messages and hence impact the online adoption of high-risk products. For example, consumers' general attitude toward online reviews' credibility positively affects their willingness to purchase online mental health services (Mannan et al 2019).…”