Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Jul 19, 2024; 14(7): 1068-1079
Published online Jul 19, 2024. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v14.i7.1068
Emotional differences based on comments on doctor-patient disputes with varying levels of severity
Jing-Ru Lu, Yu-Han Wei, Xin Wang, Yu-Qing Zhang, Jia-Yi Shao, Jiang-Jie Sun
Jing-Ru Lu, Yu-Han Wei, Xin Wang, Yu-Qing Zhang, Jia-Yi Shao, Jiang-Jie Sun, School of Health Care Management, Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230032, Anhui Province, China
Jiang-Jie Sun, School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei 230039, Anhui Province, China
Author contributions: Lu JR, Wei YH, and Sun JJ designed the research study (substantial contributions to the conception); Lu JR, Wei YH, Wang X, Zang YQ, and Shao JY collected and extracted data; Lu JR analyzed data, and interpreted the data for the work; Sun JJ provided guidance for statistical analysis and provided financial support; the authors agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy; Lu JR and Wei YH wrote the manuscript; Lu JR, Wei YH, Wang X, Zang YQ, Shao JY, and Sun JJ reviewed the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 72374005; Natural Science Foundation for the Higher Education Institutions of Anhui Province of China, No. 2023AH050561; Cultivation Programme for Young and Middle-aged Excellent Teachers in Anhui Province, No. YQZD2023021.
Institutional review board statement: This study was a study that analyzed the contents including data of Online comments, and it was not targeting humans, and there were no expected harms or side effects; therefore, this study did not need ethical approval.
Informed consent statement: This study was a study that analyzed the contents including data of Online comments, and it was not targeting humans, and there were no expected harms or side effects; therefore, this study did not need Informed consent statement.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Data sharing statement: The data used and/or analyzed during the current study is available from the corresponding author and/or the first author on reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4. 0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: Https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jiang-Jie Sun, PhD, Professor, School of Health Care Management, Anhui Medical University, No. 81 Meishan Road, Hefei 230032, Anhui Province, China. sunjiangjie@ahmu.edu.cn
Received: March 28, 2024
Revised: May 14, 2024
Accepted: June 5, 2024
Published online: July 19, 2024
Processing time: 106 Days and 4.7 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The risks associated with negative doctor-patient relationships have seriously hindered the healthy development of medical and healthcare and aroused widespread concern in society. The number of public comments on doctor-patient relationship risk events reflects the degree to which the public pays attention to such events.

AIM

To explore public emotional differences, the intensity of comments, and the positions represented at different levels of doctor-patient disputes.

METHODS

Thirty incidents of doctor-patient disputes were collected from Weibo and TikTok, and 3655 related comments were extracted. The number of comment sentiment words was extracted, and the comment sentiment value was calculated. The Kruskal-Wallis H test was used to compare differences between each variable group at different levels of incidence. Spearman’s correlation analysis was used to examine associations between variables. Regression analysis was used to explore factors influencing scores of comments on incidents.

RESULTS

The study results showed that public comments on media reports of doctor-patient disputes at all levels are mainly dominated by “good” and “disgust” emotional states. There was a significant difference in the comment scores and the number of partial emotion words between comments on varying levels of severity of doctor-patient disputes. The comment score was positively correlated with the number of emotion words related to positive, good, and happy) and negatively correlated with the number of emotion words related to negative, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness.

CONCLUSION

The number of emotion words related to negative, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness directly influences comment scores, and the severity of the incident level indirectly influences comment scores.

Keywords: Doctor-patient relationship, Doctor-patient dispute, Comments, Emotional differences, Weibo, TikTok

Core Tip: This study applies sentiment analysis methods to specific instances of doctor-patient disputes and explores differences in sentiment among different levels of incidents. Sentiment analysis using a combination of manual and machine methods compensates for the lack of using a single method to some extent. This study selected emotion as an entry point to explore the factors influencing comment scores on doctor-patient dispute incidents.