Social benefits of online peer information exchange among doctors: an empirical study on an online health community in China

In online health communities based on doctor-doctor interactions, the sustained participation of doctors in information exchange within the community is not only crucial for the long-term development of online health communities but also contributes to enhancing the knowledge and professional capabilities of doctors across different regions. The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents and consequences of information exchange behaviour among doctors. We collected interaction data among doctors from an online health community in China and utilised text mining to process unstructured data. This study employed a combination of econometric methods and generalised random forests to examine the causal mechanisms between antecedents and consequences of doctors’ information exchange behaviour. The results indicate that social capital and group characteristics have significant effects on information exchange behaviour, which in turn has significant positive effects on social benefits. In addition, the positive relationship between doctor information exchange and social benefit is higher in the clinical medicine discussion group. Information exchange behaviour mediates the relationship between group characteristics, social capital, and social benefits. Our study enriches the application of theories, deepens the understanding of social benefits, and is conducive to the stable and rapid development of online health communities based on doctor-doctor interactions.