Resumen de Measuring patient�provider trust in a primary care population: Refinement of the health care relationship trust scale

Carol Bova, Paulette Seymour Route, Kristopher Fennie, Walter Ettinger, Gertrude W. Manchester, Bruce Weinstein

• Accurately measuring trust between patients and health care providers is important because low patient�provider trust can lead to poor treatment adherence and negative health outcomes. To measure patient�provider trust, we developed the Health Care Relationship (HCR) Trust scale. Findings from our initial use of the scale suggested the need to examine the scale's psychometric performance in a larger sample of adults with various chronic health conditions. We therefore examined the psychometric properties of the HCR Trust Scale in a random sample of adult primary care patients. Thirteen of the original 15 items fit the data best; a single-factor structure explained 67% of the variance in patient�provider trust. The Cronbach's alpha for the 13-item HCR Trust Scale�Revised was .96.