Patient's trust in their psychiatrist: A cross-sectional survey

Atsumi Minamisawa, Takefumi Suzuki, Koichiro Watanabe, Yasushi Imasaka, Yoshie Kimura, Hiroyoshi Takeuchi, Shinichiro Nakajima, Haruo Kashima, Hiroyuki Uchida

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Investigating and characterizing the degree and correlates of patient's trust in their treating psychiatrists across a range of psychiatric disorders is of a great clinical relevance to enhance our therapeutic alliance, which has not been addressed in the literature. In this study, outpatients who visited one of the participating psychiatric clinics in Tokyo, Japan between October and November, 2010 were asked to complete the Trust in Physician Scale (TPS), an 11-item self-report questionnaire. A univariate general linear model was used to examine the effects of the following variables on the TPS total score: age, sex, diagnosis, Global Assessment of Functioning score, educational background, physician's years of practice as a psychiatrist, duration of treatment with their current psychiatrists, sex concordance between patients and their psychiatrists, and whether patients were older than their psychiatrists. Five hundred and four patients were enrolled (mean ± SD age = 42.8 ± 13.6 years; 176 men; Psychiatric diagnoses (ICD-10): F0 [N = 8], F2 [N = 72], F3 [N = 252], F4 [N = 147], F6 [N = 22]). A duration of treatment with their current psychiatrist of ≥1 year and a duration of their physician's clinical expertise as a psychiatrist for ≥10 years were associated with a greater degree of patient's trust in their psychiatrist. Furthermore, patients with a F3 diagnosis showed a significantly higher TPS total score than those with F4. These findings underscore an importance of paying close attention to patients who are relatively new and are not treated by well-experienced psychiatrists in terms of subjective trust. Furthermore, this likely holds more true for patients with neurotic disorders.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)603-608
Number of pages6
JournalEuropean Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Volume261
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011 Dec

Keywords

  • Disorder
  • Mood
  • Neurotic disorder
  • Patient-physician relationship
  • Therapeutic alliance
  • Trust

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Psychiatry and Mental health
  • Biological Psychiatry
  • Pharmacology (medical)

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