The image of a doctor and the students’ trust in themselves and others in the period of COVID-19 pandemic

Relevance. The features of the image of a doctor have become especially relevant in the last three years due to the protracted epidemic of a new coronavirus infection. Studies by foreign and Russian authors indicate that the image of a doctor and trust in him determine the nature of the patient’s expectations regarding medical care and readiness for compliance, and for doctors or medical university students serve as one of the guidelines for their professional development.

Intention – To study how the image of a doctor is perceived during a pandemic and how the meaningful characteristics of this image correlate with the level of trust in themselves and others in different groups of the population.

Methodology. A comparative empirical study was conducted in 206 students of Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod universities. A group of future doctors consisted of 104 students of medical faculties; a group of potential patients included 102 students of social and humanitarian faculties. Respondents were aged from 17 to 23 years (M = 19.31; SD = 1.33), 79.6 % of them were females. The method of semantic differential was used to study the image of a doctor, the level of trust in others was studied by the method of «Faith in people» (M. Rosenberg), the level of trust in themselves in different spheres was measured by a reflexive questionnaire (T.P. Skripkina).

Results and Discussion. According to the results, young students have a very positive image of a doctor during the pandemic. Significant differences in the image of a doctor among students of different faculties have been identified: students of medical universities have a more positive image of a doctor. There were no differences in the level of trust in others and in themselves among medical students and humanities students. Specific interrelations between the image of a doctor and trust in others and themselves have been established: direct correlations among medical students and inverse correlations among students of social sciences and humanitarian faculties. In general, increased levels of trust in both others and themselves among future medical professionals directly correlate with intensive positive assessments attributed to a doctor.

Conclusion. The obtained results can be used for developing models of positive image of health professionals and programs for psychological and pedagogical promotion of professional selfawareness of medical students.

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