Public Trust in Health System: A Study in Rasht County

Background and Aim: In recent years, public trust in health system has been considered one of the performance evaluation indicators of health systems. However, most of the research on public trust in health system is related to developed countries, and research in this regard is limited in Iran. A better understanding of trust in health system and some influential factors helps to develop targeted interventions to increase trust. The present study was conducted to investigate the level of public trust in health system in Rasht County. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 680 households (510 urban and 170 rural) were included. The data collection tool was a questionnaire to measure public trust in health system with 30 items and six dimensions, whose validity and reliability were confirmed. Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare and analyze the difference in public trust in health system between groups. Results: The overall score of trust in health system was 66.7 out of 112. The highest score for the quality-of-care dimension was 16.38 out of 28, and the lowest for the cooperation quality of providers dimension was 7.47 out of 12. Among service providers, the highest trust was in nurses and specialist doctors, and the least was in traditional medicine service providers. Women, government employees, people without health insurance, people with excellent and good health status, those who had used hospital services, and those who were satisfied with the last service received had a high level of trust in the health system (P