This paper looks interesting and relevant to HIFA but most of us will be unable to read it because the journal - Information Development - is behind a paywall. Information Development aims to cover 'current developments in the provision, management and use of information throughout the world, with particular emphasis on the information needs and problems of developing countries', and I suspect the editors would like to see it become open access to increase its reach and achieve its mission. On the other hand I suspect the publisher (Sage) is most interested in profitability and presumably feels that the journal is not 'ready' to be open access. Can anyone shed light on the challenges of moving a journal from restricted-access to open-access?
CITATION: Understanding knowledge sharing in online health communities: A social cognitive theory perspective
Xiaoliang Bi et al
Information Development 2023, Volume 39, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669221130552
ABSTRACT
With the growing conflict between increased health awareness and the relative shortage of offline medical resources, online health communities (OHCs) have become an important resource for people seeking help with health difficulties. However, patients joining OHCs prefer to learn about health knowledge rather than to share. As a result, the supply and demand of health information in OHC are out of balance. We collected data from users of four major Chinese OHCs using a questionnaire survey to examine the knowledge sharing intention of OHCs users. A total of 324 cases were included in the final sample. We use structural equation modeling approach to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that user environmental factors including informational support and emotional support affect trust toward members. Platform environmental factors including information quality and service quality affect trust toward community. Both trust toward members and trust toward community positively influence community commitment. Community commitment and trust toward members positively influence users’ attitudes toward knowledge sharing. Both community commitment and attitude toward knowledge sharing have been proven to be strong predictors of knowledge sharing intentions.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
