A conceptual cognitive model for understanding the coexistence of trust and distrust in health information websites

Health information websites are important sources for users and patients to search, extract, and gauge health information that fits their specific health needs, which is becoming more and more popular. Users' trust and distrust in websites may largely determine which website to access, what information to extract and how to best utilize the information. Previous research mainly focuses on user's trust and treats distrust as the opposite aspect of trust. However, recent research has proved that trust and distrust are two related but distinct aspects, which influence user's intention and behavior simultaneously. The antecedents of distrust and how they influence user's access to health information websites, together with the factor of trust, have nearly remained unclear. In this study, we propose a conceptual cognitive model for understanding antecedents of trust and distrust in health information websites, which provide specific health recommendations and advice, mainly for ailment treatment. The cognitive model integrates previous conceptualizations of Internet deception, attribution theory, trust and distrust. The antecedents of distrust are proposed based upon relevant literature. The proposed research model will be empirically validated by conducting online experiment on users of different health information websites, which correspond to different levels of trust and distrust.