Patient trust in psychiatrists

Background

General medical and primary care patients have been shown to trust their doctors but the same is not known for mental health patients.

Primary objective

To compare patients’ trust in psychiatrists with general practitioners and study the effects of patient age, gender, time knowing doctor, hospital admission and compulsory detention.

Methods

Postal survey of mental health patients in Cornwall using ‘Trust in Physician’ rating scales and questionnaires regarding the secondary measures.

Results

Mental health patients had good levels of trust in psychiatrists and GPs and that neither admission nor detention under the mental health act altered degree of trust. Male patients trusted their psychiatrists less than females.

Conclusions

this work provides evidence that psychiatrists, like GPs, are trusted and that this aspect of the doctor–patient relationship is not impaired by hospital admission and compulsory detention. Further work may be needed on developing trust with male psychiatric patients.

Declaration of interest

none. Funding detailed in “Acknowledgements”.

Keywords:

• patient trust
• psychiatrists
• therapeutic relationship

Acknowledgements

David Baker died after starting this study and the final article is dedicated to his memory. We wish to thank the CMHT team members, particularly the secretarial staff, for their help with the study, and Colin Pritchard of the Research and Development Support Unit at Royal Cornwall Hospital for his invaluable support with data analysis. This study was supported by Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.