E-Smart Health Information Adoption Processes: Central versus Peripheral Route

Our study adopted ELM (Elaboration Likelihood Model) to measure the impact of central and peripheral cues on e-healthcare website behavior and its consequence on perceived loyalty of users. While most of ELM studies did not elaborate the antecedent of both central and peripheral cues, we measured the antecedents of those information processing routes to clarify how technical and quality factors (i.e. information organization, security concern, and website attractiveness) develop the nature of either central or peripheral route. We found that information organization was the main antecedent of information quality presented on the website. Second, the results revealed that website security has a positive effect on website credibility. Third, we also found that website attractiveness was positively associated with website credibility. Fourth, consistent with elaboration likelihood model, the empirical findings suggested that information quality (central cue) and website credibility (peripheral cue) were strong predictors of behavior intention to use health website. Our findings also suggested that behavior intention to use health website significantly influenced perceived loyalty.