The mediating effect of media usage on the relationship between anxiety/fear and physician-patient trust during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVE

Our study explored whether and how media usage can mediate the path from anxiety and fear to physician-patient trust.

DESIGN

Study 1 was a population-based, longitudinal study using nationally representative data from 29 provinces in mainland China. The baseline sample ( = 3233) was obtained from February 1 to 9, 2020. Follow-up ( = 1380) took place during March 17 to 24, 2020. Study 2 was a machine learning-based sentiment analysis in which data were captured from Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website, among the most popular official, unofficial, and health-related media accounts. The screened blogs from November to December 2019 and February to March 2020 were scored by Google APIs for positivity and magnitude.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Physician-patient trust.

RESULTS

Study 1 showed fear and anxiety affected changes in physician-patient trust through media usage, the indirect effect of which was 0.14 (0.03) and the 95% CI was [0.08, 0.19]. Study 2 indicated a more positive image of physicians after the outbreak compared to before [ (2, 3537) = 3.646,  = 0.026, partial =0.002].

CONCLUSION

The negative impact of anxiety and fear on physician-patient trust was mediated by media use, which can be explained by the more positive media image during the pandemic.