Trust in Intensive Care Patients, Family, and Healthcare Professionals: The Development of a Conceptual Framework Followed by a Case Study

Intensive care patients experience anxiety, pain, uncertainty, and total dependency. In general, it is important to develop trust between the healthcare professionals (HCPs), patients, and their family. Trust building in the ICU setting is challenging because of the time sensitivity of decision making and the dependency of patients on health care professionals. The objectives of this study are the development of a trust framework and then to use this framework in a case study in the intensive care. In three steps we developed a comprehensive trust framework from the literature concerning trust. First, we identified the elements of trust. Second, we adapted and integrated the dimensions to six concepts to construct the trust framework. Third, these concepts are incorporated into a comprehensive trust framework. In a case study we explored the facilitators and barriers within this framework in eight semi-open interviews with healthcare professionals and eight patients or partners. Trust was first explored inductively and then deductively. We showed that HCPs, patients, and family have largely the same perspective regarding the facilitators of trust, in which communication emerged as the most important one. Other facilitators are maintaining an open feedback culture for HCPs and being aware of patients’ physical and informational privacy. Patients want to be approached as an individual with individual needs. Dishonesty and differences in values and norms were the most important barriers. To contribute to a positive perception of health delivery and to avoid conflicts between HCP and patients or their family we formulated five practical recommendations.