Abstract
This study is conducted to evaluate the social concern of the related issues through trend analysis of reports on Oriental medical care in major domestic newspapers including Dong-a Ilbo, Hankook Ilbo, Chosunilbo, and JoongAng Ilbo. Materials of this study were collected from a total of 1,039 reports on Oriental medical care by internet search of each newspaper company's homepage from fan 1, 1993 to Dec 31, 1999. Two researchers analyzed the trend of report contents on Oriental medical care by publication year. The major results were as follows: The most frequent subject in these reports related to Oriental medical care was 'disease', appearing in 45.5% (473) of tile reports, followed by 'oriental health system (31.5%)' and "oriental medical facilities (16.5%)'. Also, topics on the collaborative efforts of Oriental and Western medical care were reported in 7.9% of the cases. According to a survey of the opinions held for the contents in these reports, 51.0% reports held neutral views while 48.2% and only 0.8% reports had favorable and negative views, respectively. In conclusion, the reports covering Oriental medical care in major domestic newspapers have increased in recent times and many held favorable views. Considering the widespread influence of mass-media, the government and health-related organizations must continuously monitor the opinions in daily newspapers, for the opinions are the influencing force of health-rotated behaviors and changes. In this light, these organizations should enforce the health policy on strategies for mutual development of Western and Oriental medicine in Korea.
