Trust in Physicians and Hospitals During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a 50-State Survey of US Adults

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2821693

In every sociodemographic group in this survey study among 443 455 unique respondents aged 18 years or older residing in the US, trust in physicians and hospitals decreased substantially over the course of the pandemic, from 71.5% in April 2020 to 40.1% in January 2024. Individuals with lower levels of trust were less likely to have been vaccinated or received boosters for COVID-19.

So they started the survey only a few weeks after the "big lockdown" at a time when people were uncertain and frightened.

Actually, it's heartening to see that only 71.5% had trust in physicians and hospitals even back then.

The combined data included 582 634 responses across 24 survey waves, reflecting 443 455 unique respondents.

So, a fairly big sample.

The survey was developed and overseen by a consortium of academic sites, the COVID States Project, formed early in the pandemic to understand COVID-19–related attitudes and behaviors.

So, not exactly and unbiased group.

They also asked some open ended questions, and analyzed the results with AI to group into themes. Those with lowest levels of trust included the following themes in their open-ended responses:

financial motives over patient care (70 respondents [35.0%]), poor quality of care and negligence (55 respondents [27.5%]), other (39 respondents [19.5%]), influence of external entities and agendas (27 respondents [13.5%]), and discrimination and bias (9 respondents [4.5%]).

Interestingly, lower levels of trust:

were not explained by political affiliation, nor fully accounted for by trust in science, suggesting some specificity for medicine per se.

It's not just Republicans, it's not just flat-earth types. Maybe, just maybe, people don't trust doctors because they ARE NOT TRUSTWORTHY. But the group doing the study are not likely to consider THAT as a hypothesis.

Limitations included:

Trust has been recognized to be a complex construct, with one early study identifying 9 domains related to trust in physicians. More nuanced understandings of trust may require use of multi-item scales, as a recent review suggested.

Conclusions:

Whether interventions to restore trust could increase compliance with vaccination and other positive health behaviors merits further investigation.

Defining "positive health behaviours" to include "compliance with vaccination" is your problem right there, honey.