Political Attitudes on the Dutch Electronic Patient Record

Abstract

In the Netherlands, the introduction of a nationwide electronic patient record (EPR) infrastructure was rejected in 2011 after a heated political debate. Such debate is influenced by the political attitudes of politicians and voters, such as their trust in governments. The objective is to explore the relation between political attitudes of individuals and the priority they give to health privacy. The method is from a new survey that was developed; the Health Privacy and Political Attitudes Survey. The survey is as compatible as possible with a few well-known surveys. With 218 respondents enough data was collected for a first explorative study. Little correlations were found between political attitudes and the individual's priorisation of health privacy or their trust in a nationwide EPR. In general, most respondents valued their health privacy highly and trust in a nationwide EPR was low, irrespective of their political affiliation or their political attitudes. One exception were respondents with authoritarian attitudes. Such individuals had, on average, more trust in (government regulated) electronic records. More trust in the law correlates with less fear for problems with the EPR. Interestingly, higher educated and older respondents have, on average, the same level of trust in the EPR as others but are more apt to act when they distrust the system (opt-out). In general, political attitudes and one's trust in electronic patient records (EPRs) are not strongly related, but individuals who score high on authoritarian attitudes and trust in the law are more likely to also trust EPRs. Still, nearly everybody places a high value on health privacy, so EPR providers should be careful in this regard.