Communicating Personal Health Information in Virtual Health Communities: A Theoretical Framework

The use of social media technologies and platforms for health communications has grown dramatically over the past decade. Health consumers such as patients and caregivers join virtual health communities and exchange social support with other users on these websites. Communicating personal health information (PHI) in public discussions is a part of these support exchange activities. Despite the benefits that sharing PHI in this context can offer for both information owner and community, it may entail privacy risks and concerns for individuals, which may ultimately hamper user participation. Thus, drawing on the notion of privacy calculus, we propose a theoretical framework to address the simultaneous impacts of privacy concerns and expected outcomes of information sharing on communicating PHI in public discussions within virtual health communities. Moreover, we propose that emotional attachment to an online community, namely affective commitment, can have direct and moderating effects on PHI sharing within these virtual environments.