Changes in Doctor-Patient Relationships in China during COVID-19: A Text Mining Analysis

Abstract

Doctor-patient relationships (DPRs) in China have been straining. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the relationships and interactions between patients and doctors are changing. This study investigated how patients' attitudes toward physicians changed during the pandemic and what factors were associated with these changes, leading to insights for improving management in the healthcare sector. This paper collected 58,600 comments regarding Chinese doctors from three regions from the online health platform Good Doctors Online (haodf.com, accessed on 13 October 2022). These comments were analyzed using text mining techniques, such as sentiment and word frequency analyses. The results showed improvements in DPRs after the pandemic, and the degree of improvement was related to the extent to which a location was affected. The findings also suggest that administrative services in the healthcare sector need further improvement. Based on these results, we summarize relevant recommendations at the end of this paper.

Keywords: COVID-19; doctor reviews; doctor–patient relationship; sentiment analysis; text mining; word frequency analysis.

Figure 1

Doctor reviews from Beijing: (a) negative before the pandemic, (b) negative during the pandemic, (c) positive before the pandemic and (d) positive during the pandemic.

Figure 2

Doctor reviews from Shanghai: (a) negative before the pandemic, (b) negative during the pandemic, (c) positive before the pandemic and (d) positive during the pandemic.

Figure 3

Doctors review from Hubei: (a) negative before the pandemic, (b) negative during the pandemic, (c) positive before the pandemic and (d) positive during the pandemic.