Does voice matter? Investigating patient satisfaction on mobile health consultation

The rapid development of mobile technologies enables more patients to adopt mobile consultations for health services. Mobile health consultations allow voice consultation, a unique feature differentiating it from general online health consultations. However, how patients derive satisfaction in this context has yet to be well explained. This study draws on the social support theory to examine the relative effects of informational support and emotional support on patient satisfaction and the moderating role of consultation channels (voice vs. textual). Two hundred nineteen valid responses from mobile experiments were collected to test the research model and hypotheses. The results revealed that informational support had a more substantial effect on medical quality satisfaction than emotional support, while the impact of the former on service attitude satisfaction was weaker than that of the latter. Meanwhile, using a voice channel strengthened the positive relationship between informational support and medical quality satisfaction and the positive relationship between emotional support and service attitude satisfaction. This study reasonably explains previously conflicting conclusions and adds brand-new knowledge to patient satisfaction in the mobile-based context. Managers are advised to provide targeted social support and voice channel accessibility to improve mobile consultation.