Factors Influencing Physicians' Continuous Blogging: A Survey

Area of Science:

• Health Communication
• Medical Informatics
• Online Health Information Dissemination

Background:

• The internet facilitates health information sharing, but misinformation is prevalent.
• Physicians have a responsibility to provide accurate health guidance.
• Physician blogging is a growing phenomenon, yet lacks theoretical and empirical analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore factors influencing physicians' sustained intention to blog.
• To apply Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) to understand physician blogging behavior.

Main Methods:

• An online survey was distributed to 887 physician bloggers.
• 128 valid responses were collected and analyzed.

Main Results:

• Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) explained 36.8% of the variance in physicians' continuous blogging intention.
• Identified key factors influencing physicians' commitment to blogging.

Conclusions:

• Findings offer insights for platform developers to encourage physician engagement in blogging.
• Discusses implications for improving online health information quality and physician-patient communication.