Trust and trustworthiness in nursing: an argument-based literature review

Caring requires nurses to establish trusting relationships with patients and to be trustworthy professionals. This article provides insight into the conceptual understanding of trust and trustworthiness in nursing through an argument-based literature review of 17 articles published between 1980 and 2010. Trust is characterized as an attitude relying with confidence on someone. The importance of trust relationships is considered by addressing the imbalances of power in nurse-patient relationships as they increase the vulnerability and dependency of the truster. Trust is considered as a process, and time, reliance on others, risk and fragility are identified as basic attributes of trust. However, trustworthiness is inadequately explored in the nursing ethics literature. Nurse educators have a responsibility to ensure that nurses are equipped with the attitudes and knowledge that are needed to establish trusting nurse-patient relationships.