Political trust in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic: a survey in Denmark and Sweden

Background The initial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Denmark and Sweden differed markedly. Balancing disparate concerns was crucial to generate trust in the COVID-19 restrictions. Political trust is public support for core political institutions. The aim was to investigate the extent to which there was trust in the handling of the pandemic by the Danish and Swedish governments and trust in the handling of the pandemic by the leading public health authorities in each country. A further aim was also to investigate the characteristics of those in Denmark and Sweden who expressed the lowest degree of trust. Methods Cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 2021, using web panels that are nationally representative of the socio-demographic characteristics. The population consisted of 2619 individuals from Denmark and 2633 from Sweden, representative of the age, sex and region of residence of the populations aged ≥ 18 years. Trust was captured in two questions: trust in how the government and the public health authority in each country had handled the pandemic. Responses on the two trust items were on a five-point Likert scale. Those who expressed “very small trust” or “moderately small trust” were labelled “low trusters”. Results Approximately 61% of the Danish respondents expressed moderately large or very large trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic. The corresponding proportion for Sweden was 42%. The proportion of low trusters was 11% in Denmark and 34% in Sweden. Moderately large or very large trust in the public health authority’s handling was expressed by 83% of the Danish respondents and 74% of the Swedes. The proportion of low trusters was 5% in Denmark and 17% in Sweden. In both countries, trust was lower among men than among women and among those aged 65 years. Conclusions Danes expressed significantly higher trust in their government’s handling of the pandemic than Swedes. In both countries, trust in the public health authority’s handling of the pandemic was higher than that for the government’s handling. Several socio-demographic characteristics were associated with lower trust in handling the pandemic by the government and public health authority.