Trust-building mechanisms in health portals: Investigating the impacts of policy and disclosure completeness and accessibility on consumers of health information

Abstract

Health information searching is one of the most common reasons consumers use the Internet. This increasing trend of reliance on the Internet for health or medical information poses problems since experts have raised concerns about the quality of information on the Internet. The variation in consumersa?? involvement in investigating the credibility of health portals suggests that trust is still a necessity, but may exist at varying degrees. We therefore posit that the policies and disclosures in health portals are one of the mechanisms in which consumers can rely on when assessing the trustworthiness of a health portal. As such, this exploratory study elucidates the dynamics behind consumersa?? utilization of these policies and disclosures in their trust decision-making process. In addition, the impact of policy and disclosure design on trust is examined as well. Hypotheses pertaining to their design factors (completeness and accessibility) and their effects on the trusting relationship with a health portal were tested using a 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment, involving 225 participants. Findings demonstrate that consumers are disturbingly unmotivated to scrutinize the trustworthiness of health portals. Our findings further suggest that the relationships governing policy and disclosure design and trust are not as straightforward andintuitive as may have been originally considered. Implications of the findings arediscussed.