Subjective Social Status And Its Relation To Healthcare Provider Trust And Sensation Seeking

PURPOSE: Explore the relationships among subjective social status, physician trust, and sensation seeking in young adults. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 69 young adults (83% female, age = 22.34 ± 3.5) who were part of a larger parent study. Assessments in the current study included demographics (sex, concussion history, age), Trust in Physician Scale (TPS, individual items referencing primary care physician) an 11 item Likert scale, MacArthur Subjective Social Status (subscales: MacArthur SES- perceived societal social standing, range = 1-10, MacArthur Community- perceived community social standing, range = 1-10), and the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (BSSS, range = 1-5, higher scores indicate greater sensation seeking). Demographics were analyzed via descriptive statistics and Spearman correlations examined the relationship among individual TPS items, MacArthur Subjective Social Status, and BSSS. Alpha level was set to 0.05 a priori. RESULTS: Mean BSSS scores skewed towards greater sensation seeking (3 ± 0.77; range: 1.5-5.0) and mean MacArthur SES (6.7 ± 1.4; range: 2-9) and Community scores (5.9 ± 1.7; range: 2-9) identified higher subjective social status within this population. Physician trust was generally strong across the scale. No relationships were identified among MacArthur SES or Community and BSSS score (p > 0.05). Significant negative relationships were identified between MacArthur Community and TPS including doubt in physician caring (r = -0.42, p = .0004), distrust of physician opinion (r = -0.33, p = .007), and patient privacy concerns (r = -0.41, p = .0005). Significant positive relationships between MacArthur Community and physician judgement (r = 0.33, p = .006), physician expertise (r = 0.45, p = .0001), and physician mistake reporting (r = 0.32, p = .009) were observed. No significant relationships were identified among MacArthur SES and TPS responses. CONCLUSIONS: Higher levels of community social status were associated with lower levels of doubt regarding physician caring, competency, and patient privacy, and higher levels of trust in physician judgement, mistake reporting, and expertise. These findings highlight areas of health equity (e.g., patient education, compliance, follow-up care) that could require future attention by providers.