‘Trust me, I’m a Doctor’: examining the influence of threat perceptions, stigma, emotion, and distrust on reproductive health data falsification

The recent wave of abortion bans and restrictive legislation across the United States limits access to abortion care. While the societal impacts are wide-reaching, little is known about women's trust in health professionals and their willingness to disclose accurate health information in this context. Leveraging protection motivation theory, we conducted an online national survey (n = 1,016), to examine individuals' risk perceptions, stigma, negative emotion, distrust in health professionals, and intentions to falsify reproductive health data. Our findings show that individuals' reproductive health data threat appraisals (perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, and perceived stigma), and experience of negative emotion when interacting with health professionals are associated with higher distrust, whereas their coping appraisal (perceived control) is associated with lower distrust. Intentions to falsify are positively related to distrust, perceived susceptibility, and perceived stigma. Our findings demonstrate that concerns regarding privacy risk and resulting stigma can engender higher levels of distrust in health professionals and cultivate intentions to falsify reproductive health data. These insights highlight another potential negative impact of the changing reproductive health landscape in the United States on patients' relationships with health professionals and the information they intend to share. Such information can impact access to care, compromise the quality of care, and mislead healthcare providers, resulting in inaccurate diagnoses and adverse health impacts.