In this study, during the Covid-19 epidemic; It is aimed to comparatively analyze the health communication activities of the examined public and state hospitals on Instagram and the hospitals’ posts interaction level. The official Instagram accounts of Medipol Health Group as a private hospital which is owned by private institution, Yeditepe University hospital as a foundation based private hospital, Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa and Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine (Çapa) hospitals as university hospitals that are subgroup of public hospitals according to ownership based hospital classification are included in the sample. The period of the research was limited to the date of 11 March 2020, when the first Covid-19 case was announced in Turkey, and 1 June 2020, when the Ministry of Internal Affairs published the new normalization circular. The reasons for these limitations in the analysis are the intense use of Instagram in Turkey, its suitability for giving health messages due to its audio-visual features, its power to create interaction, and the high perception of risk and uncertainty in the first period of the pandemic and the increase in the public's orientation towards health communication. In this context, the Instagram posts of the relevant hospitals were analyzed according to health communication topics, the sub-topics related to the epidemic, the tone, the source, the formal structure of the message, the message connotations categories with qualitative and quantitative content analysis technique. These categories were formed on the basis of the variables in Bulunmaz (2019), Shih, Wijaya, Brossard (2008), Liu & Kim (2011), Mutua & Oloo Ong’ong (2020), Aufa, Sulistiadi& Djawas (2020), and Ersan ve Avşar (2020)’s studies about Covid-19 and health communication. As a result of the analysis, it has been determined that all of the health institutions shared posts about the Covid-19 epidemic at varying levels on Instagram, but the contents differ in terms of message connotations, source, subject, topics related to the epidemic, source and level of interaction. In addition, an important finding that is reached in the study is the determination that public hospitals use the medium both quantitatively and qualitatively in one dimension, although private hospitals produce contents for different health communication areas together with the content related to the epidemic. When the data about health communication activities related to epidemic, it is seen that all the relevant health institutions share content to prevent the transmission of the disease, the health system and the staff the competence themed contents are at a higher level on the Instagram pages of public hospitals and the virus symptoms and vital risk factors themed contents are at a higher level on the Instagram pages of private hospitals. As a result of the analysis, it is determined that the institution with the highest level of like, view and comment interaction is Medipol Health Group; and the lowest institution is Yeditepe University Hospital on Instagram. In addition, it has been determined that the Instagram posts of Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine and Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine create a high level of interaction, although the number of posts is low.
