Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T05:04:14.081Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Health Care Reform and Patients' Trust in Physicians in Urban Beijing*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2012

Waikeung Tam
Waikeung Tam*
Affiliation:
Lingnan University, Hong Kong. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Chinese health care system has experienced profound changes in recent decades, including the retrenchment of government financial support. These changes and their subsequent adverse impacts have prompted the Chinese media and some academics to suggest that patients have a relatively low level of trust in physicians in China today. As the first step in exploring the state of patient trust in physicians in public hospitals in urban China, and its determinants, we conducted a survey of 434 patients from 26 public hospitals in urban Beijing between December 2009 and January 2010. Conducted by the Horizon Research Group, our survey asked the patient respondents how they viewed the physicians they were currently seeing, focusing on the following dimensions of trust: physician agency, technical competence, interpersonal competence, and information provided by physicians. Our survey results show a relatively high level of patients' trust in their physicians. Moreover, our in-patient respondents reported a higher level of trust than out-patient respondents with regard to physician agency, interpersonal competence and information provision. Regression analyses also find that patients' self-reported health status, the level of public hospitals from which they received treatment, the duration of their illness, and the frequency of exposure to negative media reports of physicians and hospitals are important determinants of patients' trust in physicians.

Keywords

patient–physician relationshiptrusthealth careChina
Type
Research Report
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 211 , September 2012 , pp. 827 - 843
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Research for this study was supported by the LKY School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

References

Bloom, Gerald, Kanjilal, Barun and Peters, David. 2008. “Regulating health care markets in China and India.” Health Affairs 27 (4), 952–963.Google Scholar
Brownlie, Julie, Greene, Alexandra and Howson, Alexandra (eds.). 2008. Researching Trust and Health. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cook, Karen, Kramer, Roderick, Thom, Davie, Stepanikova, Irena, Mollborn, Stefanie and Cooper, Robin. 2004. “Trust and distrust in patient-physician relationships.” In Kramer, Roderick and Cook, Karen (eds.), Trust and Distrust in Organizations. New York: Russell Sage, 65–98.Google Scholar
Fang, Jing. 2008. “The Chinese health care regulatory institutions in an era of transition.” Social Science & Medicine 66 (4), 952–962.Google Scholar
Harris, Dean, and Wu, Chien-Chang. 2005. “Medical malpractice in the People's Republic of China.” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 33 (3), 456–477.Google Scholar
Henderson, Gail, and Cohen, Myron. 1984. The Chinese Hospital. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Kao, Audiey, Green, Diane, Zaslavsky, Alan, Koplan, Jeffrey and Cleary, Paul. 1998a. “The relationship between method of physician payment and patient trust.” The Journal of American Medical Association 280 (19), 1708–1714.Google Scholar
Kao, Audiey, Green, Diane, Davis, Nancy, Koplan, Jeffrey and Cleary, Paul. 1998b. “Patients' trust in their physicians.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 13 (10), 681–686.Google Scholar
Lafraniere, Sharon. 2010. “At hospitals across China, doctors are now targets.” International Herald Tribune, 10 August.Google Scholar
Mechanic, David. 1998. “The functions and limitations of trust in the provision of medical care.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 23 (4), 661–686.Google Scholar
Mechanic, David, and Meyer, Sharon. 2000. “Concepts of trust among patients with serious illness.” Social Science & Medicine 51 (5), 657–668.Google Scholar
Ministry of Health, 2009. Zhongguo weisheng tongji nianjian 2009 (China's Health Statistical Yearbook 2009). Beijing: Peking Union Medical College Press.Google Scholar
Renmin Ribao . 2009 “Beijing daxue Li Ling jiaoshou changtan xinyigai” (“Professor Li Ling of Peking University discusses the new health care reform”). 24 April 2009, http://live.people.com.cn/note.php?id=692081117155051_ctdzb_001. Accessed 24 April 2009.Google Scholar
Straten, G. F. M., Friele, R.D. and Groenewegen, P.P.. 2002. “Public trust in Dutch health care.” Social Science & Medicine 55 (2), 227–234.Google Scholar
Tam, Waikeung. 2010. “Privatising health care in China: problems and reforms.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 40 (1), 63–81.Google Scholar
Thom, David, and Campbell, Bruce. 1997. “Patient-physician trust: an exploratory study.” Journal of Family Practice 44 (2), 169–176.Google Scholar
Wang, Liping. 2008. “Chongjian xinren” (“Rebuilding trust”). Zhongguo weisheng chanye 7, http://www.zgwscy.com/content2/asp?id=7957. Accessed 11 August 2009.Google Scholar