Résumé
Objective To study the features and reasons of violent events in medical staff and the public sentiments on them based on a network analysis. Methods The data of violent events in medical staff were down-loaded from Internet. The annual and geographic distribution and reasons of violent events in medical staff, casualties of medi-cal staff and the public opinions on the major Websites were analyzed. Results The number of violent events in medical staff increased to 31 in 2012 from 1 in 2003. The violent events were distributed in 18 provinces of China, the number of casualties was 105 , and 53% of the violent events occurred due to the unsatisfactory therapeutic out-comes in patients. Conclusion The public sentiments on violent events in medical staff tend to increase on Internet and characterized by no signs and direct conflict between patients or their family members before attacking medical staff, and against general medical staff. Public sentiments on violent events in medical staff are easy to become hot events with significant negative effects on the society. Medical institutions and hospitals should prevent such events and play an active role in guiding the public sentiments.