Strategies for Strengthening Community Trust in Health services Providers from a Religious Education Perspective

Patients' trust in health care providers is the core element of the health system that promotes patients' health and well-being. The purpose of this study is to explore ways to strengthen and increase community trust in health providers from the Islamic perspective.

Religious teachings, that have shown guidelines for humans’ health and happiness, have also presented some ways to this important issue. In this research, the instructions have been extracted from the Islamic references, containing the Holy Quran and the Innocent Leaders’ guidelines and have been analyzed. The Quranic Verses and Hadiths were listed under twenty-six titles. The factors having positive roles were categorized as the ‘Confidence’ factors and the ones having negative roles as the ‘hinders’ ones.

From the viewpoint of religious references, considering the professional morals, sacredness of purposes, responsibility, using hopeful words, being careful in medical examination and listening to the patients are the most important confiding factors. Being secular and not physically and spiritually understanding of the patient are the most important hindering factors for confidence. Ethical Considerations: In selecting, reporting the findings and citing the texts, honestly and trusteeship has been observed.

In addition to academic teachings on health confidence, there should be workshops, seminars and in-service training on making patients’ confidence in presenters of health services, with reference to Islamic teachings, in order to inform them and to enhance the level of social health.