More than Words in Medical Question-and-Answer Sites: A Content-Context Congruence Perspective

Chih Hung Peng, Dezhi Yin, Han Zhang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

67 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Given the popularity and prevalence of medical question-and-answer (Q&A) services, it is increasingly important to understand what constitutes a helpful answer in the medical domain. Prior studies on user-generated content have examined the independent impacts of content and source characteristics on reader perception of the content's value. In the setting of medical Q&A sites, we propose a novel content-context congruence perspective with a focus on the role of congruence between an answer’s content and the answer’s contextual cues. Specifically, we identify two types of contextual cues critical in this unique setting—the language attributes (i.e., concreteness and emotional intensity) of the question’s content, and the acuteness of the disease to which the question is related. Building on the priming literature and construal-level theory, we hypothesize that an answer will be perceived as more helpful if the language attributes of the answer’s content are congruent with those of the preceding question, and if they are congruent with the disease’s acuteness. Analyses of a unique data set from WebMD Answers provide empirical evidence for our theoretical model. This research deepens our understanding of readers’ value judgment of online medical information, demonstrates the importance of considering the congruence of content with contextual cues, and opens up exciting opportunities for future research to explore the role of content-context congruence in all varieties of user-generated content. Our findings also provide direct practical implications for knowledge contributors and Q&A sites.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)913-928
Number of pages16
JournalInformation Systems Research
Volume31
Issue number3
Early online date5 May 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2020

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Management Information Systems
  • Information Systems
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Information Systems and Management
  • Library and Information Sciences

User-Defined Keywords

  • medical Q&A
  • answer helpfulness
  • user-generated content
  • content-context congruence
  • fit
  • concreteness
  • emotional intensity
  • construal level

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