JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

It is important for health organizations to communicate with the public through newspapers during health crises. While hospitals were a main source of information for the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about how this information was presented to the public through (online) newspaper articles.

Objective:

This study aimed to examine newspaper reporting on the situation in hospitals during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands and to assess the degree to which the reporting in newspapers aligned with what occurred in practice.

Methods:

We used a mixed-method longitudinal design to compare internal data from all hospitals (n=5) located in one of the most heavily hit regions of the Netherlands with newspaper reporting of a newspaper covering the same region. Internal data consisted of 763 pages of crisis meeting documents and 635 minutes of video communications. Newspaper articles were retrieved through the LexisNexis Academic database, whereby 194 articles were included for data analysis. For qualitative analysis we used content and thematic analysis. For the quantitative analysis we used Chi-square tests.

Results:

The content of the internal data could be categorized into 12 themes. Compared to the internal documents, newspaper articles focused significantly more on the themes of COVID-19 capacity, regular care capacity, and public support during the first year of the pandemic. Newspaper articles focused significantly less on the themes material resources and policies & protocols. Differences in attention toward themes were mainly observed between the first and second wave of the pandemic and at the end of the third wave. For some themes, the attention in the newspaper articles preceded the attention given to those themes in the internal documents.

Conclusions:

Throughout the first year of the pandemic, newspapers covered the various aspects experienced by hospitals and their staff and the information was valid. Discrepancies between newspaper and organizational focus to themes can be attributed to the gatekeeping roles of both hospitals and newspapers. Both parties should be wary of this role to further improve information distribution during future health crises. During health crises, newspapers can be a valuable source of information for the public as well as health care organizations. Through newspapers, health care organizations can learn about changes occurring in both the external and internal environment, and how these might impact the organization.