Abstract. The article analyzes the Russian readers’ attitude to medicine and to healthcare. The research is carried out on the data of public opinion polls on the problem. The reliability of the data is pointed out. Content analysis is suggested as a perspective method to examine the attitude to medicine and healthcare, on the basis of studying social networks’ texts and the users’ posts. Problems and potentialities of content analysis in this area are touched upon and discussed. The object of the research is to study the public’s attitude to medicine. The quanti-tative and the qualitative varieties of content analysis have been used to study social posts on medical issues in “VKontakte” and “Instagram” social networks. As a result, the authors have singled out various characteristics of the texts posted by the users, namely, the most frequently occurring words, “water” content, ”nausea” of the text, stop words and the core of the text. On the basis of the data obtained, the authors have drawn their conclusions concerning the users’ attitude to Russian medicine, i.e., what is the users idea of “good doctors” and “bad doctors”, of their attitude to commercial and free medicine, and of disinterested aid and money extortion in medical service. On the basis of the data obtained, the authors conclude that content analysis makes it possible to set new research and applied tasks in the area of studying public opin-ion on various issues, as well as to draw attention to problems that are insufficiently covered in social polling. To name but a few, they are the characteristics of “good” and “bad” medicine and the ideal doctor, money extortion, the public’s needs, etc.

 

Keywords: content analysis, social networks, public opinion, medicine, doctor, commercial medicine, free medicine, attitude to medicine, healthcare.