Patient Trust in Physicians： Empirical Evidence from Shanghai, China

Background： Patient trust in physicians, which can be considered a collective good, is necessary tot an effective health care system. However, there is a widespread concern that patient trust in physicians is declining under various threats to the physician patient relationship worldwide. This article aimed to assess patient trust in physicians through a quantitative study in Shanghai, China, and to provide appropriate suggestions for improving the trust in China. Methods： The data from a survey conducted in Zhongshan Hospital and Shanghai Tenth People＇s Hospital which are two tertiary public hospitals in Shanghai, were used in this study. Patient trust in physicians was the dependent variable. Furthermore, a 10-item scale was used to precisely describe the dependent variable. The demographic characteristics were independent variables of trust in physicians. Binomial logistic regression was employed to analyze the fhctors associated with the dependent variable, which was divided into two categories on the basis of the responses （1： Strongly agree or agree and 0： Strongly disagree, disagree, or neutral）. Results： This study tbund that 67% of patients trusted or strongly trusted physicians. The mean score of patient trust in physicians was 35.4 from a total score of 50. Furthermore, patient trust in physicians was significantly correlated with the age, education level, annual income, and health insurance coverage of the patients. Conclusions： Patient trust in physicians in Shanghai, China is higher than previously reported. Furthermore, the most crucial reason for patient distrust in physicians is the information asymmetry between patients and physicians, which is a natural property of the physician patient relationship, rather than the so-called for-profit characteristic of physicians or patients＇ excessive expectations.

Trend of non-communicable disease mortality for three common conditions in the elderly population from 2002 to 2010: A population-based study in China

Objective: There is a lack of data focusing on non-communicable disease (NCD) mortality in the Chinese elderly population over the past decade.Methods: Using mortality data from the Chinese Health Statistics, we explored the crude and age-standardized mortality trend of three major NCDs in the Chinese population ≥65 years of age from 2002 to 2010, namely, malignant neoplasms, heart diseases, and cerebrovascular diseases.Subpopulations characterized as rural and urban residence, and by gender and age were examined separately.Results: Mortality increased with age and was higher among males than among females across the three NCDs, with the gender difference being most remarkable for malignant neoplasms and least for heart diseases mortality.Condition-specific crude mortalities increased between 2002 and 2010, overall and in all the pre-specified subpopulations.After age-standardization, rising trends were observed for people ≥65 years old, and condition-specific mortalities generally increased in rural regions and decreased in urban regions, especially for cerebrovascular diseases.Conclusions: There were increasing trends for mortality due to malignant neoplasms, heart diseases, and cerebrovascular diseases in China between 2002 and 2010, which were largely driven by the population aging.Disparities existed by rural and urban residence, gender, and age.Copyright 2015, Chinese Medical Association Production.Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).