To trust someone is to have expectations of their behaviour; distrust often involves disappointed expectations. But healthy trust and distrust require a good understanding of which expectations are reasonable, and which are not. In this paper, I discuss the limits of trustworthiness by drawing on recent studies of trust in the context of defensive medicine, biobanking and cardiopulmonary resusc...

In the 19th century, yellow fever thrived in the tropical, urban trade centers along the American Gulf Coast. Industrializing and populated, New Orleans and Memphis made excellent habitats for the yellow fever-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and the virulence they imparted on their victims. Known for its jaundice and black, blood-filled vomit, the malady terrorized the region for decades, som...

Trust is an essential part of health care-not only between clinicians and patients but also between staff and management. Research shows us that trust has a beneficial impact on many aspects of working life, including job satisfaction and organisational effectiveness, and both these factors have been shown to affect the quality of patient care. In addition, trust will now be the keystone for an...

This study notes the differences between trust and distrust perceptions by the elderly as compared with younger populations. Given the importance of trust and distrust in compliance, changing behaviors, and forming partnerships for both health and disease management, it is necessary to be able to measure patient-doctor trust and distrust (PDTD). Following recent conceptualizations on trust and ...

Pain is influenced by many factors other than external sources of tissue damage. Among these, the clinician-patient relationship is particularly important for pain diagnosis and treatment. However, the effects of the clinician-patient relationship on pain remain underexamined. We tested the hypothesis that patients who believe they share core beliefs and values with their clinician will report ...

Recent changes to the organisation and delivery of primary care in the UK have the potential to reduce continuity of care markedly, but it is not clear how this will have an impact on patient trust. This study aims to test the associations between specific aspects of continuity in the GP-patient relationship, and patient trust, informed by the theoretical framework of behavioural game theory. A...

CONTEXT Trust is the cornerstone of the patient-physician relationship. Payment methods that place physicians at financial risk have raised concerns about patients' trust in physicians to act in patients' best interests. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the extent to which methods of physician payment are related to patient trust. DESIGN Cross-sectional telephone interview survey done between January ...

Identifying and addressing barriers and facilitators to good patient-provider clinical interactions may enhance participation in health-promoting behaviors. We used the critical incident technique to elicit descriptions of positive and negative patient-provider interactions from both patients and providers in a rural Native American community. Using the interview data, we developed a model that...

THE NOTION OF A PERSON OF TRUST: Introduced by the law dated March 4th 2002, the person of trust is there to accompany the patient in all his/her measures of care; this person is also conceived as an helper in medical decisions or when the patient participates in biomedical research protocols. DESIGNATION MODALITIES: Any adult, unprotected patient can designate a person of trust, whose interven...