ATLANTES Research Program, Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
Journalism Projects Department, School of Communication, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain.
PLoS One. 2019 Jan 25;14(1):e0211106. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211106. eCollection 2019.
Lack of social awareness is a major barrier to the development of palliative care. Mass media influences public opinion, and frequently deal with palliative care contributing to its image and public understanding.
To analyse how palliative care is portrayed in Spanish newspapers, as well as the contribution made by the press to its social representation.
Based on criteria of scope and editorial plurality, four print newspapers were selected. Using the newspaper archive MyNews (www.mynews.es), articles published between 2009 and 2014 containing the words "palliative care" or "palliative medicine" were identified. Sociological discourse analysis was performed on the identified texts on two levels: a) contextual analysis, focusing on the message as a statement; b) interpretative analysis, considering the discourse as a social product.
We examined 262 articles. Politician and healthcare professionals were the main representatives transmitting messages on palliative care. The discourses identified were characterised by: strong ideological and moral content focusing on social debate, strong ties linking palliative care and death and, to a lesser degree, as a healthcare service. The messages transmitted by representatives with direct experience in palliative care (professionals, patients and families) contributed the most to building a positive image of this healthcare practice. Overall, media reflect different interests in framing public understanding about palliative care.
The knowledge generated about how palliative care is reflected in the printed media may help to understand better one of the main barriers to its development not only in Spain, but also in other contexts.
社会意识的缺乏是缓和医疗发展的主要障碍。大众媒体影响公众舆论，经常涉及缓和医疗，有助于塑造其形象和公众理解。
分析西班牙报纸如何描述缓和医疗，以及媒体对其社会代表性的贡献。
根据范围和编辑多样性标准，选择了四份印刷报纸。使用报纸档案 MyNews（www.mynews.es），确定了 2009 年至 2014 年间包含“缓和医疗”或“缓和医学”字样的文章。对确定的文本进行了两个层面的社会学话语分析：a）语境分析，重点关注作为陈述的信息；b）解释性分析，考虑话语作为社会产物。
我们检查了 262 篇文章。政治家和医疗保健专业人员是主要的代表，传播关于缓和医疗的信息。确定的话语特征是：强烈的意识形态和道德内容，重点是社会辩论，强烈的联系将缓和医疗与死亡联系起来，而将其作为医疗服务的联系则较少。具有缓和医疗直接经验的代表（专业人员、患者和家属）传递的信息对构建这种医疗实践的积极形象贡献最大。总体而言，媒体反映了在塑造公众对缓和医疗的理解方面的不同利益。
对缓和医疗在印刷媒体中反映情况的了解，可能有助于更好地理解其发展的主要障碍之一，不仅在西班牙，而且在其他背景下也是如此。
