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Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review

OBJECTIVES: Cognitive and other biases can influence the quality of healthcare decision making. While substantial research has explored how biases can lead to diagnostic or other errors in medicine, fewer studies have examined how they impact the decision making of other healthcare professionals. Th...

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Autores principales: Featherston, Rebecca, Downie, Laura E., Vogel, Adam P., Galvin, Karyn L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7575084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33079949
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240716
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author Featherston, Rebecca
Downie, Laura E.
Vogel, Adam P.
Galvin, Karyn L.
author_facet Featherston, Rebecca
Downie, Laura E.
Vogel, Adam P.
Galvin, Karyn L.
author_sort Featherston, Rebecca
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: Cognitive and other biases can influence the quality of healthcare decision making. While substantial research has explored how biases can lead to diagnostic or other errors in medicine, fewer studies have examined how they impact the decision making of other healthcare professionals. This scoping review aimed to identify and synthesise a broad range of research investigating whether decisions made by allied health professionals are influenced by cognitive, affective or other biases. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted in five electronic databases. Title, abstract and full text screening was undertaken in duplicate, using prespecified eligibility criteria designed to identify studies attempting to demonstrate the presence of bias when allied healthcare professionals make decisions. A narrative synthesis was undertaken, focussing on the type of allied health profession, type of decision, and type of bias reported within the included studies. RESULTS: The search strategy identified 149 studies. Of these, 119 studies came from the field of psychology, with substantially fewer from social work, physical and occupational therapy, speech pathology, audiology and genetic counselling. Diagnostic and assessment decisions were the most common decision types, with fewer studies assessing treatment, prognostic or other clinical decisions. Studies investigated the presence of over 30 cognitive, affective and other decision making biases, including stereotyping biases, anchoring, and confirmation bias. Overall, 77% of the studies reported at least one outcome that represented the presence of a bias. CONCLUSION: This scoping review provides an overview of studies investigating whether decisions made by allied health professionals are influenced by cognitive, affective or other biases. Biases have the potential to seriously impact the quality, consistency and accuracy of decision making in allied health practice. The findings highlight a need for further research particularly in professional disciplines outside of psychology, using methods that reflect real life healthcare decision making.
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spelling pubmed-75750842020-10-26 Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review Featherston, Rebecca Downie, Laura E. Vogel, Adam P. Galvin, Karyn L. PLoS One Research Article OBJECTIVES: Cognitive and other biases can influence the quality of healthcare decision making. While substantial research has explored how biases can lead to diagnostic or other errors in medicine, fewer studies have examined how they impact the decision making of other healthcare professionals. This scoping review aimed to identify and synthesise a broad range of research investigating whether decisions made by allied health professionals are influenced by cognitive, affective or other biases. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted in five electronic databases. Title, abstract and full text screening was undertaken in duplicate, using prespecified eligibility criteria designed to identify studies attempting to demonstrate the presence of bias when allied healthcare professionals make decisions. A narrative synthesis was undertaken, focussing on the type of allied health profession, type of decision, and type of bias reported within the included studies. RESULTS: The search strategy identified 149 studies. Of these, 119 studies came from the field of psychology, with substantially fewer from social work, physical and occupational therapy, speech pathology, audiology and genetic counselling. Diagnostic and assessment decisions were the most common decision types, with fewer studies assessing treatment, prognostic or other clinical decisions. Studies investigated the presence of over 30 cognitive, affective and other decision making biases, including stereotyping biases, anchoring, and confirmation bias. Overall, 77% of the studies reported at least one outcome that represented the presence of a bias. CONCLUSION: This scoping review provides an overview of studies investigating whether decisions made by allied health professionals are influenced by cognitive, affective or other biases. Biases have the potential to seriously impact the quality, consistency and accuracy of decision making in allied health practice. The findings highlight a need for further research particularly in professional disciplines outside of psychology, using methods that reflect real life healthcare decision making. Public Library of Science 2020-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7575084/ /pubmed/33079949 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240716 Text en © 2020 Featherston et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Featherston, Rebecca
Downie, Laura E.
Vogel, Adam P.
Galvin, Karyn L.
Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review
title Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review
title_full Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review
title_fullStr Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review
title_full_unstemmed Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review
title_short Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review
title_sort decision making biases in the allied health professions: a systematic scoping review
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7575084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33079949
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240716
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