United States—According to the study, people’s confidence in doctors declined significantly during the COVID-19 crisis.
Still, those who lost faith in medicine are less likely to get vaccinated against COVID or the flu, as scientists observed.
“Physicians and hospital doctors can be important for public health, and declaring the survey results will take time and efforts to restore the trust that was lost due to the pandemic,” Dr. Roy Perlis, the lead researcher of the survey, mentioned and the director of the center for quantitative health at the Massachusetts General Hospital, said in the interview, as reported by HealthDay.
Medicine was politicized during a pandemic, which added to worries about one of the things that were previously regarded as easily trusting physicians.
Impact on Vaccination Rates
To evaluate the impact, the epidemiological assessment focused on data obtained from 24 waves of internet questionnaire surveys taken before, during, and after the pandemic, starting from April 2020 to January 2024, with interweave intervals mostly being one to two months. Altogether, the pilot and combined data yielded over 582,000 responses retrieved from over 443,000 adults in the U.S.
The latest findings revealed that the share of adults who said they trusted doctors at hospitals a lot fell from 72 percent in April last year to 40 percent in January this year.
Sociodemographic Factors at Play
In this study, patients who no longer trusted doctors were 25 to 64 years of age, female, residing in a rural area, possessing a low level of education, and earning little income.
Even after researchers controlled their analysis for partisanship, these associations were maintained, meaning that the loss of trust was not at all time due to political affiliation as is evidenced by the following results.
Greater trust also increased the odds that a person would get a life-protecting vaccine:
4.9 times higher odds of a COVID vaccination.
5.1 times greater odds of a flu vaccination.
3.6 times higher odds of a COVID vaccine booster.
“In every sociodemographic group in this survey study, trust declined substantially over the course of the pandemic, with lower trust likely representing a barrier to getting vaccinated or receiving boosters,” Perlis said. “Strategies may be needed to rebuild this trust to achieve public health priorities.”
Subsequently, researchers asked people the following question to know the reasons they had little trust: AI was used to code the responses.
Reasons Behind the Decline in Trust
This study found that participants with lower levels of trust in medicine had doubts about the profit motives of doctors and hospitals or the quality of care received, whether their care was influenced by others or agendas, or perceived discrimination, respectively, as reported by HealthDay.
The Path Forward
“People have different reasons for not trusting doctors and hospitals, and restoring trust will require that we consider those different reasons, rather than adopting a ‘one size fits all’ approach,” Perlis said. “But for us to be ready for the next pandemic, winning back this trust is imperative.”