Analysis of online public sentiment characteristics and response of public hospitals since the outbreak of COVID-19 / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To analyze the current situation and characteristics of online public sentiments faced by public hospitals since the outbreak of COVID-19, and provide suggestions for coping strategies for such hospitals.Methods:The data of " trending topic" or " Trending hash tag" of " Wuhan Union Hospital" and " anti-epidemic" were captured on three mainstream new media platforms, namely Sina Microblog, Tik Tok and Headline Today with the help of data analysis tools of Sina and online data statistical software from December 2019 to February 2020. Content analysis method was used to analyze the occurrence frequency, time distribution and development trend of public sentiment on Internet.Results:Under the epidemic of COVID-19, public hospitals faced an exponential growth of online public sentiment. The cumulative total number of searches was 72 119 802 tens of thousands of that before the epidemic. The transmission showed fragmentation of content, instantaneous speed and higher attention to negative information, which brought great challenges for public hospitals.Conclusions:The high participation of online discussion of COVID-19 is unprecedented. Thus public hospitals should attach importance to the work related to online public sentiment, and establish corresponding coping mechanism for response.