Examining Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients' Trust in Their Provider over Time: The Effects of Demographic Factors and Accessing Sources of Information

BACKGROUND: Patients who trust their providers have better health outcomes; a trusting patient-provider relationship is needed for optimal management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic autoimmune disease. PURPOSES/METHODS: An observational study design (N = 100 RA patients) was used to: assess associations between patients' trust and demographic factors; determine if a patient's trust in his/her provider changes over time; investigate associations between sources of information and patients' trust in their providers. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's partial moment correlation, two-sample t tests, paired t tests, and linear regression were used during data analysis. RESULTS: Patients' trust in their providers decreased over time. Less-educated persons and those who accessed information from the Internet reported less trust in their providers. Patients who consulted a larger number of information sources rated trust in their provider more positively. CONCLUSION: RA patients' trust in providers is a dynamic construct influenced by education and health information.