Improve Patients' Trust in Physicians in China
The patient-physician relationship poses a problem that attracts more attention in
Chinese society more than it does in most other countries. For example, medical disputes can further exacerbate these trust problems within patient-physician relationships. This research study reveals that most patients prefer to go to the hospital directly. Patients think physicians do not care about their needs and have a subsequent lack of confidence in physicians’ decisions. With the release of “Internet + medical care” in China, several medical care products were produced to provide more efficient medical services and popularize public medical knowledge. To address the growing public concern about interpersonal trust in the patient-physician relationship, this study recommends applying Barbara Misztal’s sociological theory integrated with an interactive design in order to improve Chinese patients’ trust in physicians. The “Trust in Physician Scale,” influenced by Misztal’s trust theory, uses measurement instruments by Anderson and Dedrick to assess these patient-physician relationships.
Research
Define the problem of the Patient-physician relationship in China.
Theoretical
Review the theory about Trust in Modern Societies by Barbara Misztal.
Prototype
Design a interactive system integratinng Misztal's theory of sociological trust.
Experiment
To evaluate the interactive system, we define alternative hypothesis and the null hypothesis.
RESEARCH
"Approximately 70% of patients did not trust physicians in China. If the results are not satisfactory, 86.5% of the patients doubt or complain about the doctors."
63.67% of people in my response still prefer to go to the hospital directly whenever they feel not good.
The research also presents how the patient understands their treatment. 31.19% of people believed that they understood a little bit. Only 18.33% think they are understood very well.
>70 % of people choose their physician based on physician information provided by the hospital and recommended by friends or family.
57% of patients considered doing lots of unnecessary exams
56% of people think that they do not have enough time to converse with a physician.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Trust in Modern Societies
Professor Barbara Misztal University of Leicester
who is interested in sociological theory (with the main focus being on problems of trust, social cooperation, dignity, forgiveness, and collective memory) and political sociology.
Misztal proves that trust could contribute to social orders in a variety of ways. There are 3 different types of trust in her typology, "Trust as Habits", "Trust as Passion", and "Trust as Police".
Misztal, B. (2013). Trust in modern societies: The search for the bases of Social Order. Wiley.
DESIGN PROTOTYPE
Start Communication with Physicians
The design allows users to have repetitive behavior to communicate with their physician and subsequently form a connection with the physician based on “trust as habits” from Mistal’s theory. Based on reading the physician’s information, the user chooses the physician and communicates with his or her doctor. After one or two communications, the user chooses the same doctor, which would form a habit.
Establishing a Long-Term Ongoing Connection Between Patients and Physcicans
Users can review the physician’s workplace, working experience, and comments from friends
or families (figure 8). Meanwhile, it displays the familiar connections who also have a close
relationship with this physician, such as friends, family members, or even the physicians who
had close relationships with their own. This feature connects to the “trust as passion” aspect
of Misztal’s trust theory.
.png)
Communication with Physicians and Effective Collaboration
This conversation feature allows patients to do pre-consultation and get to know the physician before going to the hospital. It also allows patients to keep the familiar feeling, then go to the hospital for a face-to-face consultation with the physician.
Except for pre-consultation with a physician about the health problems, in this interactive system, the physician will offer prerequirements,
such as requiring patients to do a health exam and make an appointment for preparing in-person consultation.
Experiment Design
There are 20 subjects who volunteered to participate in the experiment were randomly divided into two groups were tested with different systems.
Control Group
The interactive system has without connecting, communicating and collaborating with doctors. The users use the system to choose one of the physicians on the physician list. Users would not talk with a physician in the system, they would directly go to the hospital for consultations.
Experiment Group
The users used the fully designed interactive system to test their trust in physicians. Based on Misztal’s theory involved in the system, the users can see the familiar people who connected with the physician and communicate with the physician, We deisgn the scription for the chatting part, let people go though the process, They can engage in the treatment processing or decision.
Development of the Trust in physician Scale by Anderson and Dedrick to assess trust in patient-physician relationship.
This assessment was validated in a series of experiments and consisted of an 11-items questionnaire.
The study of the scale influences the establishment of trusting relationships between patients and physicians while illustrating how the communication process affects the development of trust.
