How clinician-patient communication affects trust in health information sources: Temporal trends from a national cross-sectional survey

Background Understanding patients’ trust in health information sources is critical to designing work systems in healthcare. Patient-centered communication during the visit might be a major factor in shaping patients’ trust in information sources. Objective The purpose of this paper is to explore relationships between patient ratings of clinician communication during the visit and patient trust in health information sources. Methodology We conducted a secondary analysis of the nationally-representative Health Information National Trends Surveys; HINTS4 Cycle1 (2011), HINTS4 Cycle4 (2014), and HINTS5 Cycle1 (2017), and HINTS5 Cycle2 (2018). We created a composite score of patient-centered communication from five questions and dichotomized at the median. We created multivariable logistic regression models to see how patient-centered communication influenced trust in different information sources across cycles. Consecutively, we used hierarchical analysis for aggregated data. Results We analyzed data from 14,425 individuals. In the adjusted logistic models for each cycle and the hierarchical model, clinicians’ perceived patient-centered communication skills were significantly associated with increased trust in the clinicians as an information source. Conclusion Clinicians still represent an essential source of trustworthy information reinforced by patient-centered communication skills. Given that trust helps build healing relationships that lead to better healthcare outcomes, communication sets an essential foundation to establish necessary trust. Interpreting information from the internet sources for patients is likely to remain a vital clinician function.