How Do Team-Level and Individual-Level Linguistic Styles Affect Patients’ Emotional Well-Being—Evidence from Online Doctor Teams

Xuan Liu (), Shuqing Zhou and Xiaotong Chi
Additional contact information
Xuan Liu: School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Shuqing Zhou: School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Xiaotong Chi: School of Business, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-21

Abstract: Background: In the post-epidemic era, online medical care is developing rapidly, and online doctor teams are attracting attention as a high-quality online medical service model that can provide more social support for patients. Methods: Using online doctor teams on the Haodf.com platform as the research subject, this study investigates the key factors in the process of doctor–patient communication, which affects patients’ emotional well-being. We also explore the different roles played by doctors as leaders and non-leaders in doctor–patient communication. From the perspective of language style, we select representative factors in the process of doctor–patient communication, namely the richness of health vocabulary, the expression of emotions, and the use of health-related terms (including perceptual words and biological words). We extract both team-level and individual-level linguistic communication styles through textual and sentiment analysis methods and empirically analyze their effects on patients’ emotional well-being using multiple linear regression models. Results: The results show that the expression of positive emotions by the team and attention to patients’ perceptions and biological conditions benefit patients’ emotional well-being. Leaders should focus on the emotional expression, whereas non-leaders should focus on the use of perceptual and biological words. Conclusions: This study expands the application of linguistic styles in the medical field and provides a practical basis for improving patients’ emotional well-being.

Keywords: online doctor teams; linguistic style; text mining; patients’ emotional well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1915/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1915/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:1915-:d:1042106

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().