Exploring the Effects of Online Physician Voice Pitch Range and Filled Pauses on Patient Satisfaction in Mobile Health Communication

ABSTRACT

The convenience of mobile devices has driven the widespread use of voice technology in mobile health communication, significantly improving the timeliness of online service. However, the issue of listening to therapeutic content, which requires great cognitive effort and may exceed the patient’s information processing capacity (i.e., information overload), is of concern. Based on information processing theory, this study reports how online physicians’ voice characteristics (pitch range and filled pauses) affect patient satisfaction. We obtained 10,585 mobile voice consultation records of 1,416 doctors from China’s largest mHealth platform and analyzed them using audio mining and empirical methods. Results showed that pitch range (β = 0.0539, p < .01) and filled pauses (β = 0.0365, p < .01) in doctors’ voice positively influenced online patient satisfaction. However, the effect of filled pauses becomes weaker for patients with higher health literacy and higher disease risk. This suggests that there is heterogeneity in the way different patients process audio information. This study provides important insights for guiding online physician behaviors, enhancing patient satisfaction, and improving mobile health platform management.

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support from The National Social Science Fund of China[23BGL271].

Authors contribution

Conceptualization: Jingfang Liu and Huihong Jiang; Methodology: Huihong Jiang; Software: Huihong Jiang; Validation: Huihong Jiang; Formal analysis: Jingfang Liu and Huihong Jiang; Investigation: Huihong Jiang; Resources: Huihong Jiang; Data curation: Huihong Jiang; Writing—original draft preparation: Huihong Jiang; Writing—review and editing: Jingfang Liu and Huihong Jiang; Visualization: Huihong Jiang; All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.