Is patients' trust in clinicians related to patient-clinician racial/ethnic or gender concordance?

Abstract

ObjectiveTo examine the relationship between patient-clinician concordance (racial/ethnic and gender) and patients’ trust in their regular clinician. MethodsThis mixed methods study used the 2019 U.S. Health Reform Monitoring Survey to examine concordance and patient trust in clinicians, and semi-structured interviews with 24 participants to explore patients’ perceptions of how concordance relates to trust in their clinician. ResultsAlmost six in ten adults (59.8%) who had a regular clinician reported having trust in their clinician. White, Black, and Latino participants were similarly likely to report trust. Those with racial/ethnic concordant clinicians were 7.5 percentage points more likely to report trust than were those with non-concordant clinicians (62.4% vs 54.9%). This finding was consistent for men and women, and did not differ significantly across racial and ethnic groups. In interviews, while almost all participants described having trusted non-racial/ethnic concordant clinicians, several described immediately trusting concordant clinicians. In contrast, we did not observe a consistent relationship between patient-clinician gender concordance and trust. ConclusionThe findings underscore the importance of increasing the number of Black and Latino clinicians, and also highlight that all clinicians need to work hard to build trust with patients from different racial/ethnic backgrounds.