Impact of Personal Trust Tendency on Patient Compliance Based on Internet Health Information Seeking

Background: Personal trust tendency is an individual characteristic that can affect one's evaluation of others, behavior and its related outcomes. It may significantly affect one's health information seeking behavior and compliance. Therefore, this article aims at figuring out how personal trust tendency influences patient compliance through the internet health information seeking and patient satisfaction with it. Methods: Data were collected from 336 valid participants through an online survey in China. There are two independent variables: (1) cognition-based trust tendency and (2) affect-based trust tendency, three intervening variables (emerging internet health information seeking, conservative internet health information seeking, and satisfaction with internet health information), one dependent variable (patient compliance), and control variables. We performed confirmative factor analysis and structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. Results: The cognition- and affect-based trust tendency positively affects patient compliance through the mediation of emerging and conservative internet health information seeking and satisfaction with internet health information. Surprisingly, strong positive relationships between affect-based trust tendency and emerging and conservative internet health information seeking were found, which are contrary to our initial hypothesis. Conclusions: Health information is considerably important when regarding health-related issues for individuals with cognition- and affect-based trust tendency. Physicians should encourage patients to seek health information on the internet and guide them to use internet health information that suits them. Information exchange and correlations should be involved in doctor-patient interactions. By following the suggestions just cited, better patient compliance can likely be obtained.