Page 170 - GHES-3-2

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability
Online health community reviews

attitude, response, follow-up visits, and other issues. emotional support when needed. OHCs can facilitate this
Likewise, they might have both positive experiences and by offering secure communication systems and virtual
slightly negative feelings, leading to a neutral evaluation consultation tools.
based on the actual situation.
The response speed and quality can also be improved,
Hence, analyzing the emotions and concerns expressed as patients often express dissatisfaction with delayed
in OHC reviews can provide valuable insights into patients’ responses or inadequate replies from doctors. Hence,
perceptions and expectations of doctors. doctors should strive to respond more promptly to patient
inquiries and ensure that responses are comprehensive and
4.2.1. Prevalence of positive sentiments
helpful. OHCs can support this by implementing efficient
Most reviews in OHCs are positive, indicating that patients notification systems and providing guidelines for doctors
generally have favorable experiences with doctors. This on how to craft effective responses.
suggests that the overall level of service provided by doctors
is satisfactory. However, the existence of negative reviews, 4.3.2. Focus on holistic care
albeit fewer in number, highlights areas of improvement. Patients are not only concerned with the medical expertise
Therefore, doctors should focus on maintaining and of doctors but also with their overall experience, including
enhancing the positive aspects of their services while the hospital environment and the diagnostic and treatment
addressing the specific issues mentioned in the negative process. Health-care providers should work to create a
reviews. comfortable and supportive environment for patients.
4.2.2. Importance of doctor-patient interaction OHCs can assist by providing resources to improve
hospital facilities, treatment procedures, and patient rights,
Patients place significant emphasis on the attitude and enabling patients to make better-informed decisions and
patience of doctors, highlighting the importance of set realistic expectations.
interpersonal skills in health care. Hence, training programs
should be implemented to enhance the communication 4.3.3. Leverage feedback for continuous improvement
skills, empathy, and patience of doctors. This will not only OHCs offer extensive feedback that can be used for
improve patient satisfaction but also foster a more positive
perception of the health-care experience. continuous improvement. Doctors should actively
monitor and analyze patient reviews to identify areas for
4.2.3. Disease-specific concerns improvement. OHCs can facilitate this by providing tools
Sentiment analysis revealed differences in emotions for sentiment analysis and feedback aggregation, enabling
among patients with different diseases. For instance, doctors to make data-driven decisions.
diabetic patients express more negative sentiments, 4.4. Study limitations
possibly due to the chronic nature of the disease and the
ongoing treatment process. Doctors should adapt their This study had certain limitations, such as the small amount
communication and support strategies to address the of data collected for sentiment analysis, which led to an
unique challenges and concerns associated with each emotion classification accuracy of only 87%. To improve
disease. For chronic conditions like diabetes, providing emotion classification accuracy, more data should be
comprehensive education, support groups, and regular collected and the sentiment dictionary should be updated
follow-ups can help manage patient expectations and in future studies. In addition, this study relied solely on
improve satisfaction. sentiment dictionaries, which limited the ability to classify
context, irony, or complex sentences. In future work, it is
4.3. Recommendations for improvements recommended to consider integrating machine learning

Based on the identified key factors influencing patient techniques, such as BERT and LSTM, for more detailed
sentiments, several recommendations can be suggested sentiment classification. Another limitation that should
for doctors and OHCs to improve patient sentiments and be discussed is that the focus on three diseases may limit
address patient concerns. the generalizability of the findings. Expanding the study
to include other prevalent diseases (e.g., cardiovascular
4.3.1. Communication and support diseases) could enhance its applicability. In addition,

Doctors should prioritize clear and empathetic since dissatisfied patients in OHCs may be more inclined
communication with patients. This includes taking the to post reviews, the proportion of negative reviews may
time to listen to patient concerns, thoroughly explaining be overestimated, and this bias may impact the accurate
medical conditions and treatment options, and providing evaluation of the overall service quality of doctors.

Volume 3 Issue 2 (2025) 162 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.7052