Siegel Zachary A, Brown Abigail, Devendorf Andrew, Collier Johanna, Jason Leonard A
1 DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA.
2 University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.
Chronic Illn. 2018 Mar;14(1):3-12. doi: 10.1177/1742395317703175. Epub 2017 Apr 12.
Objectives The aim of this study was to analyze the content of American newspaper articles ( n=214) from 1987 to 2013, in order to understand how the public digests information related to Chronic Fatigue syndrome, a controversial and misunderstood illness. Methods A novel codebook derived from the scientific literature was applied to 214 newspaper articles collected from Lexis Nexis Academic®. These articles were coded quantitatively and frequency tables were created to delineate the variables as they appeared in the articles. Results The etiology was portrayed as organic in 64.5% ( n=138) of the articles, and there was no mention of case definitions or diagnostic criteria in 56.1% ( n=120) of the articles. The most common comorbidity was depression, appearing in 22.9% ( n=49) of the articles. In 55.6% ( n=119) of the articles, there was no mention of prevalence rates. In 50.9% ( n=109) of the articles, there was no mention of any form of treatment for the illness. A total of 19.4% ( n=42) of the headlines mislabeled the name of the illness. Discussion Based on descriptive statistics of all 214 coded articles, media communicated mixed messages for salient variables such as the name of the illness, its etiology and treatment.
目的 本研究旨在分析1987年至2013年美国报纸文章（n = 214）的内容，以了解公众如何消化与慢性疲劳综合征相关的信息，这是一种存在争议且被误解的疾病。方法 将从科学文献中衍生出的一个新颖编码本应用于从Lexis Nexis Academic®收集的214篇报纸文章。对这些文章进行定量编码，并创建频率表以描绘文章中出现的变量。结果 64.5%（n = 138）的文章将病因描述为器质性的，56.1%（n = 120）的文章未提及病例定义或诊断标准。最常见的合并症是抑郁症，出现在22.9%（n = 49）的文章中。55.6%（n = 119）的文章未提及患病率。50.9%（n = 109）的文章未提及该疾病的任何形式的治疗方法。共有19.4%（n = 42）的标题错误标注了疾病名称。讨论 根据对所有214篇编码文章的描述性统计，媒体就疾病名称、病因和治疗等显著变量传达了混杂的信息。
