Investigate pandemic effects on trust in healthcare

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic showed to be a test for the public’s trust in healthcare systems. In Sweden where the access to healthcare is institutionalized, the pandemic presented an opportunity to analyze the variations in trust across different regions. This paper uses fixed-effect regressions and analyzes panel data from “Vården i siffror” between the years 2018 to 2023 to examine how trust was influenced by the pandemic. Previous research suggests that accessibility to healthcare enhances trust, which is a critical factor in patient satisfaction, therefore this paper uses access to healthcare as a dynamic component. Other essential factors of healthcare like care opportunities, visits at the doctor and overall healthcare costs have been used to conclude the true effect on trust in healthcare. Our results show that despite larger interactions, symmetric information and transparency between healthcare providers and the public during the pandemic there were no significant long-term change in the trust levels post-pandemic. There was a temporary increase during the pandemic but not something that was sustained over time or even more persistently than the pandemic. This suggests that while an immediate response temporarily increases trust, a more sustained trust in healthcare is built up during years and requires more fundamental structural changes within the institutions.