Empirically understanding trust in medical technology

Abstract

Researchers across disciplines have developed measures of interpersonal trust, system trust, and trust in technology and sought to determine if measures of trust in technology should use the same trust factors as interpersonal trust measures. Studies have found evidence to support the notion that trust and distrust are considered opposites, negating the need for two separate measures to be developed and that participants rate concepts of generalized trust, interpersonal trust, system trust, and trust in technology similarly. It is not apparent if trust in medical technology is the same as trust in general technology; if the two constructs are different, existing trust in technology models may not be useful in discussions about medical technology. The studies involved in the development of a framework of trust in medical technology provide evidence to determine that trust in medical technology is empirically different from trust in technology. The methods described in the studies are based on research methods used to empirically define the constructs trust and comfort and were chosen to extend previous trust in technology models and to offer comparison and validation of findings and methods used in previous studies. Relevance to industry Understanding how users construct trust in medical technology provides insight to how medical technologies may be used, misused, disused or abused [Parasuraman, R., Riley, V., 1997. Humans and automation: use, misuse, disuse, abuse. Human Factors 39 (2), 230–253] by patients and health care providers and health system issues such as error, malpractice, adoption and satisfaction. The factors of trust in medical technology generated in these studies may be used for the development of trust in medical technology measurement tools. As will be shown, medical technology generalizes in many ways to other technology so the methods and results presented here have broader implications.