Trust is a bilateral relationship €“ one trusts and the other is trusted. While the two are related, they are not the same. For the one who would be trusted, it's all about how worthy they are of our trust €“ how trustworthy they are.

Trust comprises a number of variables. We use the word to describe what we think of what people say, and also how they behave. We use it to describe whether or not we are comfortable sharing information about ourselves or others with them. And we use it to indicate whether or not we feel other people have our interests at heart, or just their own.

With this in mind, we can represent trust as a simple equation consisting of four variables:

• Credibility
• Reliability
• Intimacy
• Self-orientation.

Therefore trust = C+R+I+S

Let's look at each in turn.

Credibility has to do with what we say €“ the words we speak but also our competence. Are we credible on the subjects we speak about? Can customers, patients and other health professionals trust that what we say is correct? Do we have credibility?

Reliability by contrast, has to do with our actions, with what we do. It is about keeping promises and delivering on commitments. Someone might say: 'If she says she will do it, I know she will.'

Intimacy refers to the sense of safety or security we feel when entrusting someone with something confidential, and the level of confidence you have that they will not share it with anyone else and violate your trust.

Self-orientation refers to the focus of the person in question. In particular, whether the person's focus is primarily on themselves or on others. We don't trust people who seem more concerned with how they appear to others than with what they need to do. People with a strong, open character are more likely to be trusted than those who behave in a way that could be perceived as manipulative or duplicitous.

Increasing the value of the factors in the numerator (C+R+I) increases the value of trust. Increasing the value of the denominator €“ self-orientation €“ decreases the value of trust.

Since there is only one variable in the denominator and three in the numerator, the most important factor is self-orientation. This is intentional. A health professional with low selforientation is free to focus on the needs of their patients and users of their services. This provides a base on which you can build your credibility, your reliability and your relationships.

Looking at trust in this way allows you to build trustworthiness €“ through building credibility and reliability. These terms can sometimes be used in an organisational sense as well as a personal one, for example, to describe companies or websites. The terms intimacy and self-orientation, however, are almost exclusively to do with personal traits. Working on the four trust values is the best way to increase your trustworthiness.