Abstract
COVID-19 continues to spread across the globe at an exponential speed, infecting millions and overwhelming even the most prepared healthcare systems. Concerns are looming that the healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are mostly unprepared to combat the virus because of limited resources. The problems in LMICs are exacerbated by the fact that citizens in these countries generally exhibit low trust in the healthcare system because of its low quality, which could trigger a number of uncooperative behaviors. In this paper, we focus on one such behavior and investigate the relationship between trust in the healthcare system and the probability of potential treatment-seeking behavior upon the appearance of the first symptoms of COVID-19. First, we provide motivating evidence from a unique national online survey administered in Armenia–a post-Soviet LMIC country. We then present results from a large-scale survey experiment in Armenia that provides causal evidence supporting the investigated relationship. Our main finding is that a more trustworthy healthcare system enhances the probability of potential treatment-seeking behavior when observing the initial symptoms.
Highlights
As of April 26, 2021, there are roughly 148 million COVID-19 cases and 3.1 million deaths worldwide
This paper empirically investigates the relationship between patient trust in the healthcare system and the probability of seeking professional medical help in case of first symptoms of COVID-19 in a low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the Armenia
We substantially depart from this stream of research in the sense that we investigate the connection between vertical trust and health behavior during a quickly evolving pandemic that created significant problems for almost everyone in the world
Summary
As of April 26, 2021, there are roughly 148 million COVID-19 cases and 3.1 million deaths worldwide. A recent Gallup study finds that, in the United States, one out of every seven adults (14%) would not seek coronavirus treatment for themselves or a member of their household (Witters, 2020). According to the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, as of April 23, 2020, roughly two-thirds of the coronavirus victims in Moscow first opted for self-care and found themselves in the hospitals in critical condition. In India, there have been instances of isolated patients (with either confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases) trying to run away from public hospitals (Chetterje, 2020). While in the United States the cost of medical treatment seems to be one of the main factors deterring individuals from seeking medical help (Witters, 2020), the reasons in LMICs can be considerably different. In many of these countries, the public healthcare system bears the financial
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