Partly related to your question:

New IJHPR articles explore the quality of health information on the web, and the complexity of decision making by legal guardians

THE ISRAEL NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH POLICY RESEARCH

At our institute, NIVEL in the Netherlands, we have a yearly monitor on trust in various types of health care professions and organisations. The questions used in that monitor have been translated into German and English (ref 1). A more extensive version has some extra questions and has also been translated into English (ref 2). I'll be happy to send that second questionnaire if you're interested and/or bring you into contact with the authors if you at one point wish to compare Norway with other countries. In at least two other publications they looked at factors such as education and the efffects of safety incidents on trust (3.4).

Best regards, Johan Hansen, NIVEL

Refs:

1) Schee, E. van der, Braun, B., Calnan, M., Schnee, M., Groenewegen, P.P. Public trust in health care: a comparison of Germany, the Netherlands, and England and Wales. Health Policy: 2007, 81(1), 56-67

2) Schee, E. van der, Groenewegen, P.P., Friele, R.D. Public trust in health care in the Netherlands: a performance indicator? Journal of Health Organization and Management: 2006, 20(5), 468-476

3) Schee, E. van der, Jong, J.D. de, Groenewegen, P.P. The influence of a local, media covered hospital incident on public trust in health care. European Journal of Public Health: 2012, 22(4), 459-464

4) Schee, E. van der, Groenewegen, P.P. Determinants of public trust in complementary and alternative medicine. BMC Public Health, vol. 10, 2010, nr. 128

Hi Stein,

I've worked a little in this area in Belfast, UK, in the context of mental health, where there is often a lack of trust. In NI, Accident & Emergency mental health services in particular have been heavily criticised (they are under resourced and their importance is often underestimated).

The only questionnaire I've come across was created by the Belfast Mental Health Rights Group (part of the PPRProject), to monitor the 'level' and 'quality' of public participation in consultations with Health Trusts and policy makers (government working groups etc.). It takes a human rights based approach to participation, which is innovative and powerful.

Maybe you will find it helpful or interesting:

http://www.pprproject.org/sites/default/files/documents/mh%20participation%20pamphlet.pdf

www.pprproject.org

Good luck with your work- it sounds very worthwhile.

Karen

The Wake Forest Trust Scale has subscales validated to measure patient trust in PCP and patient trust in physicians in general. You could assess trust pre/post intervention and look for changes. It has not been translated to other languages, though.

We have a database of patient questionnaires on DIRUM at www.dirum.org

Whilst these focus on healthcare resource use, there may be a few which include areas of patient satisfaction and trust in addition to this.

There's also a paper by Kelly et al, Design of a questionnaire to measure trust in an emergency department. Acad Emerg Med. 2005 Feb;12(2):147-51.

I think that it would be handy to step back from your request for a questionnaire for a moment and analyse your problem - it might be that there is a single existing instrument out there but I doubt it.

i) How are you going to measure trust? There are questionnaires out there that do this - including the single item questions from the NHS patient surveys (actually asks about confidence and trust). and the resources you have been pointed to above.

ii)This brings us to a second point - in order to decide how to go about this / select a measure you need to be clear about what you / the measure actually means by 'trust' conceptually. I don't think it is axiomatic and any 'validation' depends on the answer to this.

iii) In relation to 'factors that affect it' it is worth theorising and exploring the existing literature to identify what important factors should be considered, rather than taking something existing just because it has been used. In simple terms what do you think is going to affect trust?

iv) Having worked this out again you might find existing questionnaires. or you might find that you 'simply' have some particular questions that you want to ask....

I hope that helps you to think it through!

In most areas of the world and especially in the rural areas, trust is a subject that needs to be followed with all good intentions. Patients are not willing to give any information to health service providers or professionals, if there is no trust. Both the health care providers and the health care professionals must show that they are more interested in the patient rather than receiving a check. A closed mind cannot be educated, having said that if the patient is not impressed with the health care provider or professional, nothing will be received as beneficial to them. There is not a questionnaire out there that would fill your needs...so I would recommend getting one and make revisions to how you would want to be received as a health care provider or professional.

I think here is what you need (sorry for the long list):

1. Kao AC, Green DC, Davis NA, Koplan JP, Cleary PD. Patients’ trust in their

physicians. J Gen Intern Med 1998; 13: 681-686.

2. Keating NL, Gandhi TK, Orav EJ, Bates DW, Ayanian JZ. Patient characteristics and experiences associated with trust in specialist physicians.

Arch Intern Med 2004; 164: 1015-1020.

3. Hall MA, Camacho F, Dugan E, Balkrishnan R. Trust in the medical profession: conceptual and measurement issues. Health Serv Res 2002; 37: 1419-1439.

4. Halbert CH, Armstrong D, Gandy, OH, Shaker L. Racial differences in trust in

health care providers. Arch Intern Med 2006; 166: 896-901.

5. Stepanikova I, Mollborn S, Cook KS, Thorn DH, Kramer RM. Patients’ race

ethnicity, language and trust in a physician. J Health Soc Behav 2006; 47:

390-405.

6. Benkert R, Peters RM, Clark R, Keves-Foster K. Effects of perceived racism,

cultural mistrust and trust in providers on satisfaction with care. J Natl Med

Assoc 2006; 98:1532-1540.

7. Benkert R, Hollie B, Nordstrom CK, Wickson B, Bins-Emerick L. Trust,

mistrust, racial identity and patient satisfaction in urban African American primary care patients of nurse practitioners. J Nurs Scholar 2009; 41: 211-219.

8. Hall MA. Researching medical trust in the United States. J Health Organ Manag 2006; 20: 456-467.

9. Zheng B, Hall MA, Dugan E, Kidd KE, Levine D. Development of a scale to

measure patients’ trust in health insurers. Health Serv Res 2002; 37: 187-202.

10. Mainous AG, Smith DW, Geese ME, Tilley BC. Development of a measure to

assess patient trust in medical researchers. Ann Fam Med 2006; 4: 247-252.

11. Taira DA, Safan DG, Seto TB, et al. Do patient assessments of primary care

differ by patient ethnicity? Health Serv Res 2001; 36: 1059-1071.

12. LaVeist TA, Nickerson KJ, Bowie JV. Attitudes about racism, medical mistrust,

and satisfaction with care among African American and white cardiac

patients. Med Care Res Rev 2000; 59 (Suppl 1); 146-161.

13. Boulware LE, Cooper LA, Ratner LE, LaVeist TA, Powe NR. Race and trust in

the health care system. Public Health Rep 2003; 118: 358-365.

14. Brandon D, Isaac L, LaVeist TA. The legacy of Tuskegee and trust in medical

care: is Tuskegee responsible for race differences in mistrust of medical care?

J Nat Med Assoc 2005; 97: 951-956.

15. Halbert CH, Weathers B, Delmoor E, et. at. Racial differences in medical

mistrust among men diagnosed with prostate cancer. Cancer 2009; 115:

2553-2561.

16. Peitte JD, Heisler M, Krein S, Kerr EA. The role of patient-physician trust in

moderating medication non-adherence due to cost pressures. Arch Intern Med 2005; 165: 1749-1755.

17. O’Malley AS, Sheppard VB, Schwartz M, Mandelblatt J. The role of trust in use of preventive services among low income African American women. Prev

Med 2004; 38: 777-785.

18. Shelton RC, Winkel G, Davis SN, et al. Validation of the group-based medical

mistrust scale among urban black men. J Gen Intern Med 2010; 25: 549-555.

19. LaVeist TA, Isaac LA, Williams KP. Mistrust of health care organizations is

associated with underutilization of health services. Health Serv Res 2009; 44:

2093-2105.

20. Mohseni M, Lindstrom M. Social capital, trust in the health-care system and self-rated health: the role of access to health care in a population-based study. Soc Sci Med. 2007;64(7):1373–1383.

21. Rose A, Shea JA, Armstrong K. Development of the health care system scale.

J Gen Inter Med. 2004;19:57–63.

22. Shea JA, Micco E, Dean LT, McMurphy S, Schwartz JS, Armstrong K. Development of a revised Health Care System Distrust scale. J Gen Intern Med. 2008;23:727–32.

23. Armstrong K, McMurphy S, Dean LT, et al. Differences in the patterns of health care system distrust between blacks and whites. J Gen Intern Med. 2008;23:827–833.

Thank you for a very interesting and thorough reply! I assume you have done some work in the field yourself?

Stein, you are right! I worked on developing a student mistrust in health systems scale. The manuscript is in press right now and as soon as it is out, I will share it with you. In the meanwhile, please feel free to ask any questions that you have.

The research "Determination of facilitating factors for building trust in virtual interactions" (in portuguese), by Luiz Eduardo Neiva Vilaça, can colaborate to his work, although it is outside the health area. The web link ​​is http://www.bdtd.ucb.br/tede/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=792.

As an answer to your question maybe my article "Trust in Health Care: Susceptibility to Change" will be helpful. If you will be interested I can send you the questionnaire used for the paper in English.

Roman, your article is, in my point of view, a very good contribution for the research of trust in health care organizations. I am beginning a study on interpersonal trust relationships between department directors and followers, namely Internal Medicine doctors. I would like if you sent me the questionnaire used for your paper. Thank you.

Victor, Please find enclosed the questionnaire. I hope it will be useful. If you have any other question do not hesitate to ask.

Best Regards

Roman

Sorry Victor,

This time I attached the file properly, I hope so! If you have problem with opening it, please ask.

Roman

Thank you very much for your quick and helping answer.

Victor Seco

Here are details of on ongoing research project on popular trust in the Chinese health care system: http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/sccr/research/performanceevaluationstrustandutilizationofhealthcareinchina/#d.en.227260

I would appreciate contacts from any other researchers actively working on trust in health care systems.

Thanks

Neil

Questions and online data analysis tool from our recent China project on trust in health care systems available here: http://www.gla.ac.uk/chinahealthsurvey