Table 1 Variable definitions.

Dependent variables

IoP_i

The increment in number of patients for doctor i between September and December 2022.

Independent variables

ISEP_i

The total number of professional words used by the doctor i, which is extracted from the interaction text through text mining.

ESEP_i

The numbers of emotional words used by the doctor i, which is extracted from the interaction text through text mining.

ISDG_j

The total number of professional words used by the doctor i expressed from patients, which is extracted from the patient treatment experience text through text mining.

ESDP_i

The numbers of emotional words used by the doctor i expressed from patients, which is extracted from the patient treatment experience text through text mining.

Moderate variables

TreatExp_j

Treatment experience is obtained based on patient complain on Haodf.com directly. It is measured by the duration of disease (unit is month).

EmoSta_j

The sentiment analysis application program interface from Baidu AI-NLP is used to measure emotion state of patients. It ranges from 0 to 1.

Control variables

#Patient_i

The number of patients online for doctor i.

Recommendation_i

Patients’ recommendation for doctor i, which is measured by Haodf.com.

Hlevel_i

The level of hospital where doctor i works. A dummy variable is used to present whether hospital level is AAA.

Mtitle_i

The medical title for doctor i. A dummy variable is used to measure whether doctor i is a chief doctor or associate chief doctor.

Serp_i

The service price for doctor i.