Trust in COVID-19 policy among public health professionals in Israel during the first wave of the pandemic: a cross-sectional study

Table 2 Socio-demographic characteristics of the participants with low and high levels of trust in COVID-19 policy (by percentage) and comparison between the groups

Variable	Value	Trust in COVID-19 policy*
Variable	Value	Low level (n = 56) [%]	High level (n = 56) [%]	p-value
Public health profession^a				< 0.05
	Public health physician	35.8	15.7
	Researcher	34.0	33.3
	Other health professional	30.2	51.0
Professional seniority in public health^a				0.751
	1–4 years	12.7	17.9
	5–10 years	23.6	21.4
	11–15 years	18.2	12.5
	Over 16 years	45.5	48.2
Gender^a				0.531
	Male	33.3	27.8
	Female	66.7	72.2
Religion^a				0.741
	Jewish	89.1	87.0
	Muslim	7.3	1.8
	Christian	1.8	9.3
Level of religiosity^a				0.429
	Secular	80.0	73.6
	Traditional	9.1	9.4
	Religious	10.9	15.1
	Ultra-Orthodox	0.0	1.9
Involvement in decision-making processes^a				0.654
	Low	78.6	75.0
	High	21.4	25.0

	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	**
Trust in Ministry of Health^b	2.52	0.786	3.91	0.769	< 0.001
Trust in Minister of Health^b	1.23	0.504	1.89	0.985	< 0.001
Trust in Prime Minister^b	1.59	0.848	2.64	1.23	< 0.001
Age^c	48.7	12.8	50.2	10.1	0.530
Use of Israeli Security Agency tools^c	2.21	0.695	3.17	0.638	< 0.001
Personal compliance^c	4.05	0.883	4.42	0.541	< 0.01

^*Percentage of participants with low and high levels of trust in COVID-19 policy by socio-demographic characteristics
^**Mean and standard deviation for levels of trust in the various agencies, age, use of Israeli Security Agency tools and personal compliance, between participants with low compared to high levels of trust in COVID-19 policy
^aPearson’s chi-squared test
^bMann–Whitney U test
^cIndependent samples t-test

ISSN: 2045-4015