Public Trust in Physicians-Health Care Commodification as a Possible Deteriorating Factor: Cross-sectional Analysis of 23 Countries.
Trust in physicians has declined, and surveys of public opinion show a poor level of public trust in physicians. Commodification of health care has been speculated as a plausible driving force. We used cross-national data of 23 countries from the International Social Survey Programme 2011 to quantify health care commodification and study its role in the trust that patients generally place in physicians. A modified health care index was used to quantify health care commodification. There were 34 968 respondents. A question about the level of general trust in physicians and a 4-item "general trust in physicians" scale were used as our major and minor outcomes. The results were that compared with those in the reference countries, the respondents in the health care-commodified countries were approximately half as likely to trust physicians (odds ratio: 0.47, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.31-0.72) and scored 1.13 (95% CI: 1.89-0.37) less on the general trust scale. However, trust in physicians in the health care-decommodified countries did not differ from that in the reference countries. In conclusion, health care commodification may play a meaningful role in the deterioration of public trust in physicians.
['Huang|Ellery Chih-Han|EC|', 'Pu|Christy|C|', 'Chou|Yiing-Jenq|YJ|', 'Huang|Nicole|N|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D032821:Commodification D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D005260:Female D014943:Global Health D005102:Health Expenditures D006801:Humans D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D010817:Physician-Patient Relations D010820:Physicians D017149:Private Sector D017150:Public Sector D035502:Trust D055815:Young Adult
trust commodification health care commodification health care commercialization multilevel patient trust surveys and questionnaires