IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/beh/jbepv1/v1y2017i2p17-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Boundedly rational patients? Part 2: Health and patient mistakes in a behavioral framework

Author

Listed:
  • Ada C. Stefanescu Schmidt

    (Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School)

  • Ami B. Bhatt

    (Outpatient Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor at Harvard Medical School)

  • Cass R. Sunstein

    (Robert Walmsley University, Professor at Harvard University)

Abstract

We present the results of a randomized-assignment experiment that shows that patients perform very poorly on the Cognitive Reflection Test and thus are overwhelmingly in a System 1 state prior to a physician visit. Assigning patients the task of completing patient-reported outcomes measures immediately prior to the visit had a small numerical, but not statistically significant, shift towards a reflective frame of mind. We describe hypotheses to explain poor performance by patients, which may be due to anxiety, a bandwidth tax, or a scarcity effect, and outline further direction for study. Understanding the behavioral sources of errors on the part of patients in their interactions with physicians and in their decision-making is necessary to implement measures improve shared decision-making, patient experience, and (perhaps above all) clinical outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Ada C. Stefanescu Schmidt & Ami B. Bhatt & Cass R. Sunstein, 2017. "Boundedly rational patients? Part 2: Health and patient mistakes in a behavioral framework," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 1(2), pages 17-23, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:beh:jbepv1:v:1:y:2017:i:2:p:17-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sabeconomics.org/journal/RePEc/beh/JBEPv1/articles/JBEP-1-2-3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:3:p:182-191 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cognitive Reflections Test; patient-reported outcomes measurement information system; System 1 and System 2; nudges;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:beh:jbepv1:v:1:y:2017:i:2:p:17-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SABE (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sabeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.