Abstract: This paper aimed to explore the factors of healthcare professionals’ health misinformation correcting intention on social media. The results of this study can be useful to reduce the spread of health misinformation. Based on Third-Person Effects (TPE), Protective Motivation Theory (PMT) and Heuristic System Model (HSM), this paper employed Structural Equation Model(SEM) and Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis(fsQCA) to explore the influencing factors of healthcare professionals’ health misinformation correcting intention and its configurations. The path analyses showed that third-person effect, social media trust, self-efficacy, response efficacy and professional identity can positively affect health misinformation correcting intention; Information processing affected social media trust and the third-person effect; Social media trust positively affected self-efficacy and response efficacy, and these two variables had mediating effects between social media trust and health misinformation correcting intention. The fsQCA found that there were three configurations leading to health misinformation correcting intention. Third-person effect, self-efficacy, response efficacy, and professional identity were important antecedents. This study can call for and encourage more healthcare professionals to participate in the correction of health misinformation on social media, thus reducing the adverse effects of misinformation and safeguarding public health.

Key words: Social media, Health misinformation, Health misinformation correction, SEM, fsQCA