Imperial College London
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DrOlgaKostopoulou

Faculty of Medicine, Department of Surgery & Cancer

Reader in Medical Decision Making
 
 
 
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Contact

 

o.kostopoulou Website

 
 
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Location

 

5.07Medical SchoolSt Mary's Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Kostopoulou:2009,
author = {Kostopoulou, O and Mousoulis, C and Delaney, BC},
journal = {Judgment and Decision Making},
pages = {408--418},
title = {Information search and information distortion in the diagnosis of an ambiguous presentation},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/25408},
volume = {4},
year = {2009}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Physicians often encounter diagnostic problems with ambiguous and conflicting features. What are they likely to do in such situations? We presented a diagnostic scenario to 84 family physicians and traced their information gathering, diagnoses and management. The scenario contained an ambiguous feature, while the other features supported either a cardiac or a musculoskeletal diagnosis. Due to the risk of death, the cardiac diagnosis should be considered and managed appropriately. Forty-seven participants (56%) gave only a musculoskeletal diagnosis and 45 of them managed the patient inappropriately (sent him home with painkillers). They elicited less information and spent less time on the scenario than those who diagnosed a cardiac cause. No feedback was provided to participants. Stimulated recall with 52 of the physicians revealed differences in the way that the same information was interpreted as a function of the final diagnosis. The musculoskeletal group denigrated important cues, making them coherent with their representation of a pulled muscle, whilst the cardiac group saw them as evidence for a cardiac problem. Most physicians indicated that they were fairly or very certain about their diagnosis. The observed behaviours can be described as coherence- based reasoning, whereby an emerging judgment influences the evaluation of incoming information, so that confident judgments can be achieved even with ambiguous, uncertain and conflicting information. The role of coherence-based reasoning in medical diagnosis and diagnostic error needs to be systematically examined.
AU  - Kostopoulou,O
AU  - Mousoulis,C
AU  - Delaney,BC
EP  - 418
PY  - 2009///
SN  - 1930-2975
SP  - 408
TI  - Information search and information distortion in the diagnosis of an ambiguous presentation
T2  - Judgment and Decision Making
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/25408
VL  - 4
ER  -
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