Roles of trust in privacy assurance and perceived disease severity on personal health information disclosure

The benefits of digitization of personal health information have been identified in many studies (Anderson and Agarwal 2011; Glaser et al. 2008; Noffsinger and Chin 2000). The studies suggest that such digitization can reduce medical errors and costs, improve patient safety and public health monitoring efficiency, and etc. However, the impact of healthcare privacy breaches on behavioral reactions is not well known although this phenomenon is an important source of healthcare privacy concern. Hence, this study attempts to examine the influence of healthcare privacy breach on health information disclosure, and the moderating role of trust in privacy assurance and perceived disease severity in healthcare privacy invasion context. To achieve these goals, we adopt communication privacy management theory, and privacy calculus. A scenario-based survey method is employed to explore the influence of privacy breaches. Several theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.