“They just don’t have the “doctor” in front of their name:” Dimensions of trust of physician assistants

Physician assistants play a major role in healthcare delivery in the United States, yet what we know about how patients perceive the care they receive from PAs is limited. Prior research on patients' impressions of PAs has focused primarily on survey data, limiting the scope of what we can learn about patient impressions to predetermined, quantifiable categories, and has focused on post-visit impressions of a single encounter. In an attempt to better understand patient impressions, we conducted open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 30 participants prior to their medical visit, focusing on general impressions of PAs. Through an analytic process of reflexive thematic analysis, we identified three themes from the interview data: patients are confident in PAs, patients feel valued by PAs, and patients appreciate the openness that PAs create. Through exploration of these themes, we uncovered the ways in which interviewees described PAs as engendering trust and enacting multiple aspects of patient-centered care.