Restoring patient trust in healthcare: medical information impact case study in Poland

BACKGROUND: This study empirically evaluates the influence of medical information on patient trust at the physician level, the medical profession, hospitals, and with the payer. Restoring patient trust in a medical setting in Poland appears to be significantly affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Patient trust improves results from medical treatment, raises perception of healthcare performance, and smoothens the overall functionality of healthcare systems. METHODS: In order to study trust volatility, patients took part in a three-stage experiment designed via: (1) measured level of trust, (2) randomly dividing participants into two groups—control (i.e., re-examination of level of trust) and experimental (i.e., being exposed to a piece of certain manipulative information), and (3) checking whether observational changes were permanent. RESULTS: Results indicate that in the experimental group the increase of trust was noticed in the payer (27.7%, p < 0.001), hospitals (10.9%, p = 0.011), and physicians (decrease of 9.2%, p = 0.036). CONCLUSION: The study indicated that in Poland medical information is likely to influence patient trust in healthcare while interpersonal and social trust levels may be related to increases of trust in hospitals and in the payer versus decreases in physicians. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-021-06879-2.