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Public health
Research
Impact of adverse media reporting on public perceptions of the doctor–patient relationship in China: an analysis with propensity score matching method
  1. Jing Sun1,
  2. Shiyang Liu1,
  3. Qiannan Liu1,
  4. Zijuan Wang1,
  5. Jun Wang2,
  6. Cecile Jia Hu3,
  7. Mark Stuntz4,
  8. Jing Ma5,
  9. Yuanli Liu1
  1. 1 School of Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China
  2. 2 Institute of Health Economics and Finance, Central University of Economics and Finance, Beijing, China
  3. 3 Deerfield Institute, Shanghai, China
  4. 4 Deerfield Institute, New York, USA
  5. 5 Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  1. Correspondence to Professor Yuanli Liu; yliu{at}pumc.edu.cn

Abstract

Objectives Numerous studies indicate that the doctor–patient relationship in China is facing serious challenges. This study examined the impact of China Central Television’s negative coverage of high medicines prices on both doctors’ and patients’ opinions of the doctor–patient relationship.

Setting Data were collected in a national survey conducted during 19 December 2016 to 11 January 2017 which targeted 136 public tertiary hospitals across the country.

Participants All patients and doctors who submitted completed questionnaire were retrieved from the survey database.

Intervention The study used propensity score matching method to match the respondents before and after China Central Television’s news report about high medicines prices which was given at 00:00 hours on 24 December 2016.

Outcome measure Perception scores were calculated based on the five-point Likert scales to measure the opinions of the doctor–patient relationship.

Results The perception scores of the doctor–patient relationship were significantly affected by the negative media coverage for hospitalised patients, who scored 1.18 lower on the doctor–patient relationship following the report (p=0.006, 95% CI 0.34 to 2.02), and doctors who scored 5.96 points lower on the same scale (p<0.001, 95% CI 4.11 to 7.82). Score for the ambulatory patients was unaffected by exposure to the adverse news report (p=0.05).

Conclusion Chinese national media’s reporting of adverse news negatively affected the perceptions of the doctor–patient relationship among both inpatients and doctors. A better understanding of the role of mass media in the formation of opinion and trust between doctors and patients may permit strategies for managing the media, in order to improve public perceptions of the doctor–patient relationship.

  • health policy
  • public health
  • social medicine

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022455

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors participated the study design and paper conception. JS and JW took a major role in designing the study. YL, QL and ZW made substantial contributions to data analysis and interpretation. JS, JM, YL, CJH and MS wrote the article and revised it critically for important intellectual contents. All authors made important contributions to revision of the article. SL, QL and ZW took the responsibility of data clearance. All authors approved the final version to be published and accepted accountability for all aspects of the work.

    • Funding The survey and the study was supported by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of P.R.China.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Ethics approval The protocol of the national survey was reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Peking Union Medical College.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Additional data of this study are available by emailing sunjing@sph.pumc.edu.cn.