Patients’ Trust in Health Care Providers Among Hospitalized Patients, Jimma, South West Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION: Trust is a fundamental aspect of the patient–health care provider (HCP) relationship associated with adherence to medical treatment and continuity of follow-up. Despite its importance there is a paucity of information in Ethiopia. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to assess patient trust in HCPs at the Jimma medical center (JMC), Ethiopia. METHODS: An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted among 404 participants from April 16 to June 29, 2020. Study participants were selected using a systematic sampling technique. Data were collected on socio-demographic characteristics, health related and clinical characteristics, and patient trust in the patient–HCP. The collected data were entered into Epi-Data version 3.1 then exported to SPSS version 23.0 for analysis. Variables with a p-value <.25 on bivariate analysis were considered as candidates for multivariate analyses. Statistical significance on multivariable analysis was declared with p-value < .05 and 95% confidence intervals (CI). RESULTS: In our study, 38% of patients had low trust. Among the 397 study participants, 46.6% were female. One-third (33.2%) of respondents had no formal education. Patients who live alone [(AOR) 4.30(1.98–9.33), p = .00], and self-reported as a poor current health status [(AOR) 2.32(1.39–3.88), p = .002] were positively associated to patient trust in patient–HCP. On the other hand, duration of disease more than one year after diagnosis [(AOR) 0.48 (0.25–0.92), p = .028], comorbid disease [(AOR) 0.39(0.22−0.67), p = .001], and impaired physical mobility [(AOR) 0.27(0.16−0.45), p = .001] were negatively associated with patient trust in HCP. CONCLUSION: This study pinpoints that 38 out of 100 patients had low trust. Living alone and having poor self-reported current health status increased low trust. This calls for HCPs to rebuild trust and give due attention to patients living alone and with poor health status.