Overconfidence, Time-on-Task, and Medical Errors: Is There a Relationship?
Adv Med Educ Pract
; 15: 133-140, 2024.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38410282
ABSTRACT
Background:
Literature suggest that physicians' high level of confidence has a negative impact on medical decisions, and this may lead to medical errors. Experimental research is lacking; however, this study investigated the effects of high confidence on diagnostic accuracy.Methods:
Forty internal medicine residents from different hospitals in Saudi Arabia were divided randomly into two groups A high-confidence group as an experimental and a low-confidence group acting as a control. Both groups solved each of eight written complex clinical vignettes. Before diagnosing these cases, the high-confidence group was led to believe that the task was easy, while the low-confidence group was presented with information from which it could deduce that the diagnostic task was difficult. Level of confidence, response time, and diagnostic accuracy were recorded.Results:
The participants in the high-confidence group had a significantly higher confidence level than those in the control group 0.75 compared to 0.61 (maximum 1.00). However, neither time on task nor diagnostic accuracy significantly differed between the two groups.Conclusion:
In the literature, high confidence as one of common cognitive biases has a strong association with medical error. Even though the high-confidence group spent somewhat less time on the cases, suggesting potential premature decision-making, we failed to find differences in diagnostic accuracy. It is suggested that overconfidence should be studied as a personality trait rather than as a malleable characteristic.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Adv Med Educ Pract
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Arábia Saudita
País de publicação:
Nova Zelândia