Building and maintaining trust through the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: A content analysis of communiques delivered by the Norwegian Minister of health and care services

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic presented not only a challenge to leaders' decision-making, but also to their ability to demonstrate effective crisis and emergency communication. This study examines the communication delivered by the Norwegian Minister of Health and Care services during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, corresponding to the first wave of infection timeframe. Communiques were analysed through a process of coding to identify 15 Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) themes, in addition to word cloud analyses and KWIC-analyses. The results were aligned with policy stringency, public health measures from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) and trust data from the Norwegian Directorate of Health (NDH) over timeframe to examine changes in communication. The study revealed that the communication delivered by the Minister included many of the CERC features, although communication failures could be observed, coinciding with reduction in the public's trust in the health authorities. Despite reduced trust, however, compliance with the precautionary measures against COVID-19 was still high. A likely explanation might be that the inherent trust in the health authorities was high, and that the simple, repeated efficacy messages was understood by the public—‘wash your hands and keep a distance’. These findings indicate that keeping communication science-based, transparent, accurate, and consistent, and never compromise with honesty and truthfulness, are keys in crisis and emergency situations. Being a leader in an organization with high inherent trust may also help.