Physician, General Public and Media Opinion Leader Posts Regarding Physician-patient Conflicts on Microblog: A Comparative Content Analysis (Preprint)

Abstract

Physician–patient conflicts in China have increased more than ten times from the 2000s to the 2020 and arouse heated discussions on microblog. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is believed to have brought a turnaround in the physician–patient relationship. However, little is known about the similarities and differences among the views of opinion leaders from the general public, physicians, and media regarding physician–patient conflict incidents on microblog, and whether the outbreak had an impact on this.

This study aimed to explore how opinion leaders from the physicians, general public, and media framed posts on major physician–patient conflict incidents on microblog. The findings will provide more objective evidence of the attitudes and perspectives of the health professionals, general public, and media on physician–patient conflicts, and the influence of pandemics on physician–patient relationship.

A comparative content analysis was conducted to examine the posts (N=941) of microblog opinion leaders regarding major physician–patient conflicts in China from 2012 to 2020.

Post- pandemic posts used more cooperation (M pre-pandemic = 0.046, M post-pidemic = 0.347, p<.001) and positive frame (M pre-pandemic = 0.247, M post-pandemic = 0.613, p<.001), but less attribution frame (M pre-pandemic = 0.345, M post-pandemic = 0.261, p=0.016) and health knowledge promotion (M pre-pandemic = 0.116, M post-pandemic = 0.015, p<.001), and no differences were found regarding conflict and negative frame. Media opinion leaders used more conflict (M = 0.146), cooperation (M = 0.066), attribution (M = 0.162), and positive frame (M = 0.367); and less negative frame (M = 0.189), and health knowledge promotion (M = 0.021) than physician and general public opinion leaders.

The physician and general public opinion leaders share some similarity in their post frames, implying that no fundamental discrepancy exists among them regarding physician–patient conflict incidents. However, the imbalanced use of frames by media would cultivate and reinforce the public perception of physician–patient contradictions. After the COVID-19 pandemic, more cooperation and positive frames were used in the posts, indicating an improvement in the physician–patient relationship in China.