IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v16y2019i7p1273-d221352.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public Perception on Healthcare Services: Evidence from Social Media Platforms in China

Author

Listed:
  • Guangyu Hu

    (School of Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China)

  • Xueyan Han

    (School of Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China)

  • Huixuan Zhou

    (School of Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China)

  • Yuanli Liu

    (School of Public Health, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100730, China)

Abstract

Social media has been used as data resource in a growing number of health-related research. The objectives of this study were to identify content volume and sentiment polarity of social media records relevant to healthcare services in China. A list of the key words of healthcare services were used to extract data from WeChat and Qzone, between June 2017 and September 2017. The data were put into a corpus, where content analyses were performed using Tencent natural language processing (NLP). The final corpus contained approximately 29 million records. Records on patient safety were the most frequently mentioned topic (approximately 8.73 million, 30.1% of the corpus), with the contents on humanistic care having received the least social media references (0.43 Million, 1.5%). Sentiment analyses showed 36.1%, 16.4%, and 47.4% of positive, neutral, and negative emotions, respectively. The doctor-patient relationship category had the highest proportion of negative contents (74.9%), followed by service efficiency (59.5%), and nursing service (53.0%). Neutral disposition was found to be the highest (30.4%) in the contents on appointment-booking services. This study added evidence to the magnitude and direction of public perceptions on healthcare services in China’s hospital and pointed to the possibility of monitoring healthcare service improvement, using readily available data in social media.

Suggested Citation

  • Guangyu Hu & Xueyan Han & Huixuan Zhou & Yuanli Liu, 2019. "Public Perception on Healthcare Services: Evidence from Social Media Platforms in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-10, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:7:p:1273-:d:221352
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/7/1273/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/7/1273/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xianyun Tian & Philip Batterham & Shuang Song & Xiaoxu Yao & Guang Yu, 2018. "Characterizing Depression Issues on Sina Weibo," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-11, April.
    2. repec:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2016.303512_4 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Jianwei Shi & Sheng Wang & Ping Zhou & Leiyu Shi & Yu Zhang & Fei Bai & Di Xue & Xinkai Zhang, 2015. "The Frequency of Patient-Initiated Violence and Its Psychological Impact on Physicians in China: A Cross-Sectional Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-17, June.
    4. Maged N. Kamel Boulos & Dean M. Giustini & Steve Wheeler, 2016. "Instagram and WhatsApp in Health and Healthcare: An Overview," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-14, July.
    5. Sinnenberg, L. & Buttenheim, A.M. & Padrez, K. & Mancheno, C. & Ungar, L. & Merchant, R.M., 2017. "Twitter as a tool for health research: A systematic review," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 107(1), pages 1-8.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Afiq Izzudin A. Rahim & Mohd Ismail Ibrahim & Kamarul Imran Musa & Sook-Ling Chua, 2021. "Facebook Reviews as a Supplemental Tool for Hospital Patient Satisfaction and Its Relationship with Hospital Accreditation in Malaysia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-16, July.
    2. Afiq Izzudin A. Rahim & Mohd Ismail Ibrahim & Kamarul Imran Musa & Sook-Ling Chua & Najib Majdi Yaacob, 2021. "Assessing Patient-Perceived Hospital Service Quality and Sentiment in Malaysian Public Hospitals Using Machine Learning and Facebook Reviews," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-28, September.
    3. Aavash Raj Pandey & Mahdi Seify & Udoka Okonta & Amin Hosseinian-Far, 2023. "Advanced Sentiment Analysis for Managing and Improving Patient Experience: Application for General Practitioner (GP) Classification in Northamptonshire," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(12), pages 1-11, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luis-Millán González & José Devís-Devís & Maite Pellicer-Chenoll & Miquel Pans & Alberto Pardo-Ibañez & Xavier García-Massó & Fernanda Peset & Fernanda Garzón-Farinós & Víctor Pérez-Samaniego, 2021. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Sport in Twitter: A Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-20, April.
    2. Wendy Nieto-Gutierrez & Carlos J Toro-Huamanchumo & Alvaro Taype-Rondan & Raúl Timaná-Ruiz & Carlos Alva Diaz & David Jumpa-Armas & Seimer Escobedo-Palza & CONAREME Consejo Nacional de Residentado Méd, 2018. "Workplace violence by specialty among Peruvian medical residents," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(11), pages 1-12, November.
    3. Muhammad Imran & Umair Qazi & Ferda Ofli, 2022. "TBCOV: Two Billion Multilingual COVID-19 Tweets with Sentiment, Entity, Geo, and Gender Labels," Data, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-27, January.
    4. Isaac Chun-Hai Fung & Jingjing Yin & Keisha D. Pressley & Carmen H. Duke & Chen Mo & Hai Liang & King-Wa Fu & Zion Tsz Ho Tse & Su-I Hou, 2019. "Pedagogical Demonstration of Twitter Data Analysis: A Case Study of World AIDS Day, 2014," Data, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-12, June.
    5. Xuening Wang & Xianyun Tian & Xuwei Pan & Dongxu Wei & Qi Qi, 2021. "What Happens When People with Depression Gather Online?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-12, August.
    6. Nason Maani Hessari & May CI van Schalkwyk & Sian Thomas & Mark Petticrew, 2019. "Alcohol Industry CSR Organisations: What Can Their Twitter Activity Tell Us about Their Independence and Their Priorities? A Comparative Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-12, March.
    7. Sonja I. Garske & Suzanne Elayan & Martin Sykora & Tamar Edry & Linus B. Grabenhenrich & Sandro Galea & Sarah R. Lowe & Oliver Gruebner, 2021. "Space-Time Dependence of Emotions on Twitter after a Natural Disaster," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-13, May.
    8. Teris Cheung & Paul H. Lee & Paul S. F. Yip, 2017. "Workplace Violence toward Physicians and Nurses: Prevalence and Correlates in Macau," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-15, August.
    9. Santoveña-Casal, Sonia & Pérez, Ma Dolores Fernández, 2022. "Relevance of E-Participation in the state health campaign in Spain: #EstoNoEsUnJuego / #ThisIsNotAGame," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    10. Laura Picazo-Sánchez & Rosa Domínguez-Martín & David García-Marín, 2022. "Health Promotion on Instagram: Descriptive–Correlational Study and Predictive Factors of Influencers’ Content," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-15, November.
    11. Diane Ezeh Aruah & Yvonne Henshaw & Kim Walsh-Childers, 2023. "Tweets That Matter: Exploring the Solutions to Maternal Mortality in the United States Discussed by Advocacy Organizations on Twitter," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(9), pages 1-14, April.
    12. Paramveer S. Dhillon & Sinan Aral, 2021. "Modeling Dynamic User Interests: A Neural Matrix Factorization Approach," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(6), pages 1059-1080, November.
    13. Meng Hsiu Tsai & Yingfeng Wang, 2021. "Analyzing Twitter Data to Evaluate People’s Attitudes towards Public Health Policies and Events in the Era of COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-14, June.
    14. Gabrielle Turner-McGrievy & Amir Karami & Courtney Monroe & Heather M. Brandt, 2020. "Dietary pattern recognition on Twitter: a case example of before, during, and after four natural disasters," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 103(1), pages 1035-1049, August.
    15. Aline Vargas Pinto & Iris Beerepoot & Antônio Carlos Gastaud Maçada, 2023. "Encourage autonomy to increase individual work performance: the impact of job characteristics on workaround behavior and shadow IT usage," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 233-246, September.
    16. Christopher Morris & Richard E. Scott & Maurice Mars, 2022. "An Audit and Survey of Informal Use of Instant Messaging for Dermatology in District Hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-11, June.
    17. Huarng, Kun-Huang & Lee, Cheng-Fang & Yu, Tiffany Hui-Kuang, 2023. "Case study of a healthcare virtual community model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    18. José-María Romero-Rodríguez & Carmen Rodríguez-Jiménez & Magdalena Ramos Navas-Parejo & José-Antonio Marín-Marín & Gerardo Gómez-García, 2020. "Use of Instagram by Pre-Service Teacher Education: Smartphone Habits and Dependency Factors," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-10, June.
    19. Jairo León-Quismondo, 2023. "Social Sensing and Individual Brands in Sports: Lessons Learned from English-Language Reactions on Twitter to Pau Gasol’s Retirement Announcement," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-13, January.
    20. Chelsi C. Alexander & Shilpa Shrestha & Mamadou D. Tounkara & Shelly Cooper & Leiema Hunt & Taylor H. Hoj & Kirk Dearden & Dotto Kezakubi & Vianney Atugonza & Joshua West & Benjamin Crookston & Cougar, 2019. "Media Access is Associated with Knowledge of Optimal Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Practices in Tanzania," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-10, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:7:p:1273-:d:221352. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.