Yahya Ayhan Acar1, Erdem Çevik2, Cem Uyguner3, Orhan Çınar4

1Emergency Department, Etimesgut Military Hospital, Ankara, Turkey
2Emergency Department, Van Military Hospital, Van, Turkey
3Infirmary Service, Air Logistics Command, Ankara, Turkey
4Department Of Emergency Medicine, Gulhane Military Medicine Faculty, Ankara, Turkey

Keywords: Emergency service, press media, newspaper, content analysis

Abstract

Objectives: Aim of this study is to make a content analysis of the news about emergency service in newspapers in Turkey. Material and Methods: In this study, the news about emergency service between 1st January 2010 and 31st December 2012 of the five highest-circulation newspapers were analysed from their official websites. The news were indicated to be a word about emergency service in headline or at least one pragraph about emergency service in the text. Four researchers graded the selected items blindly according to 5 point Likert scale for content and tone. Then the news categorised as positive (1-2 points), neutral (3 points) and negative (4-5 points). Results: In a total of 604 news, 27% had positive (n=164), 12% had neutral (n=74) and 61% had negative (n=366) content. While the neutral tonned news' percentage was 63% (n=383); newspapers were represented the news negatively in 23% (n=138) items and positively in 14% (n=83) items. While the most common news were about patient transport/112/ambulance, news about violence to physicians and other healthcare workers were in the second line. Conclusion: It was concluded that emergency services in Turkey take part in newspapers negatively and these news are mostly about patient transport/112/ambulance or violence to physicians/other healthcare workers.