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

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. 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 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. 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 in government and health authorities was captured in two separate trust questions on a 5-point Likert scale and dichotomized into low trusters and non-low trusters for analysis. 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 (p