Media Reports About Violence Against Doctors in China

Background: Improper, unprofessional, or misleading media reports about violence against doctors may provoke copycat incidents. Little is known about the adherence of media reports about violence against doctors to professional journalism recommendations. Methods: We identified ten influential incidents of violence against doctors in China through a systematic strategy and used standardized internet-based search techniques to retrieve media reports about these events. Reports were evaluated independently by trained coders to assess adherence to professional journalism recommendations using a 14-item checklist. Findings: In total, 788 eligible media reports were considered. Of those, 50·5% and 47·3% respectively failed to mention the real and complete names of the writer and editor. Reports improperly mentioned specific details about the time, place, methods, and perpetrators of violence in 42·1%, 36·4%, 45·4% and 54·6% of cases, respectively. Over 80% of reports excluded a suggestion to seek help from professional agencies or mediation by a third party and only 3·8% of reports mentioned the perspectives of all three key informants about an event: doctors, patients, and hospital administrators. Of those that mentioned doctor, patient, and/or hospital administrator perspectives, less than 20% indicated they had obtained the interviewee’s consent to include their perspective. Interpretation: Most reports about violence against doctors in the Chinese media failed to strictly follow reporting recommendations from authoritative media bodies. Efforts are recommended to improve adherence to professional guidelines in media reports about violence against doctors in China, as adherence to those guidelines is likely to reduce future violent events against doctors. Funding Statement: None declared. Declaration of Interests: We have no conflicts of interest to declare. Ethics Approval Statement: This analysis was approved by the ethics committee of Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University (NO. XYGW-2018-24).