Public and Patient Involvement Research Unit, School of Medicine, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
Health Research Institute (HRI), University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
Front Public Health. 2022 Jul 6;10:925402. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.925402. eCollection 2022.
Previous studies have identified "trust" as a key mechanism to achieve sustainable partnerships in participatory health research, which themselves can represent social networks. A recent review discussed the potential for social network analysis to investigate the development and maintenance of trust and its effects on partnership functioning in participatory health research partnerships. This review also recommended considering a comprehensive, nuanced and multidimensional approach to conceptualizing, operationalizing and measuring trust in research partnerships. Thus, this study aims to explore empirically the conceptualizing, operationalizing and measuring of trust in a multidimensional manner, approaching each trust dimension as an individual trust network, as well as combined as an overall trust network.
We sampled the whole network, recruiting from a newly established network of 57 individuals that must collaborate to achieve a common goal. These individuals represented academic, service and community organizations of an existing participatory partnership, the in Ireland. Of the 57 individuals invited to take part in the study, 75% ( = 43) individuals completed the network survey. A survey about trust was designed based on literature in the area and was administered via Qualtrics. The survey included eight network questions: one on collaboration, and seven on specific dimensions of trust. From this, we constructed a network for each trust dimension. We compared several core network measures of each to identify structural differences between the dimensions of trust. To statistically validate them, we compared them to a random and preferential null model.
All the networks had a high reciprocity but were decentralized. Key differences were identified across trust dimensions, particularly in terms of integrity and shared values, visions and goals. None of the networks compared well to the null models indicating participants did not randomly or preferentially (based on how much trust they receive for a particular trust dimension) trust other partners.
DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: This novel empirical social network analysis of trust in a real-world partnership elucidates the nuances and multidimensional nature of trust. This provides support for expanding this research direction to enhance understanding of and interventions for trust in participatory health research.
先前的研究已经确定“信任”是实现参与式健康研究可持续伙伴关系的关键机制，而这些伙伴关系本身可以代表社交网络。最近的一篇综述讨论了社会网络分析在调查参与式健康研究伙伴关系中信任的发展和维持及其对伙伴关系功能的影响的潜力。该综述还建议考虑一种全面、细致和多维的方法来概念化、操作化和衡量研究伙伴关系中的信任。因此，本研究旨在以多维方式实证探索信任的概念化、操作化和衡量，将每个信任维度视为一个独立的信任网络，并将其作为一个整体信任网络进行组合。
我们对整个网络进行了抽样，从一个新成立的 57 人的网络中招募参与者，这些人必须合作才能实现共同目标。这些人代表了爱尔兰一个现有的参与式伙伴关系——中的学术、服务和社区组织。在受邀参加研究的 57 人中，有 75%（=43）人完成了网络调查。我们根据该领域的文献设计了一份关于信任的调查问卷，并通过 Qualtrics 进行了管理。该调查包括 8 个关于信任的网络问题：一个关于合作，以及 7 个关于信任的具体维度。由此，我们为每个信任维度构建了一个网络。我们比较了这些网络的几个核心网络指标，以确定信任维度之间的结构差异。为了对其进行统计验证，我们将它们与随机和优先的零模型进行了比较。
所有网络的互惠性都很高，但分散程度也很高。在信任维度之间，特别是在诚信和共同价值观、愿景和目标方面，发现了明显的差异。没有一个网络与零模型吻合得很好，这表明参与者没有根据特定信任维度收到的信任程度随机或优先地（基于特定信任维度收到的信任程度）信任其他伙伴。
讨论/结论：这项对现实伙伴关系中信任的新的实证社会网络分析阐明了信任的细微差别和多维性质。这为扩展这一研究方向以增强对参与式健康研究中信任的理解和干预提供了支持。
