Journal of general internal medicine
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Comparative Study
The import of trust in regular providers to trust in cancer physicians among white, African American, and Hispanic breast cancer patients.
Interpersonal trust is an important component of the patient-doctor relationship. Little is known about patients' trust in the multiple providers seen when confronting serious illness. ⋯ Our results suggest that patients are very trusting of their breast cancer providers. This is an important finding given that research with other populations has shown an association between trust and patient satisfaction and treatment adherence. Our findings also suggest that a trusting relationship with a regular provider facilitates trusting relationships with specialists. Additional work is needed to increase interpersonal trust among black women.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Placebo adherence and its association with morbidity and mortality in the studies of left ventricular dysfunction.
A provocative finding from several double-blind clinical trials has been the association between greater adherence to placebo study medication and better health outcomes. We used data from the Studies of Left Ventricular Dysfunction (SOLVD) Treatment Trial (SOLVD-TT) and the SOLVD Prevention Trial (SOLVD-PT) to examine whether such associations could be validated and to examine several sources of bias and potential confounding. ⋯ In these two trials, better adherence to placebo was associated with markedly superior health outcomes, including total in-study mortality and incident cardiovascular events. No important confounders were identified. These data suggest there may exist strong but unrecognized determinants of health outcomes for which placebo adherence is a marker.