Patients fear judgment for sharing negative health opinions, research finds

When a person visits his doctor, he should not keep secrets. Unless patients come forward with their symptoms, behaviors, and health-related beliefs, it is difficult for health care professionals to diagnose and treat illnesses; or counseling and teaching patients how to take better care of themselves in the future.

There is only one problem: a new study from the Stevens Institute of Technology shows that many people believe they will be judged if they share negative beliefs with their care group-; and that doctors actually take negative views seriously about patients who reveal false or irrational beliefs.

People worry that their doctors look down on them-; and it seems to be a perfectly reasonable matter. Our study suggests that physicians actually misjudge patients if they share information or beliefs with which they disagree. ”

Dr. Samantha Kleinberg, the project’s principal investigator

In order to understand how people think about sharing information with health care professionals, Dr. Kleinberg and his colleagues surveyed more than 350 patients and more than 200 doctors, asking how they would view people with a range of different medical beliefs. Beliefs ranged from factual information to false statements of many kinds: some were logical (such as believing that eating sugar causes diabetes); some were absurd (like believing that carrot juice cures diabetes); and others were delusions (such as the belief that pharmaceutical companies deliberately cause diabetes to create more insulin consumers). Dr. Onur Asan, also at the Stevens Institute of Technology, co-authored the study with Dr. Jessecae K. Marsh, employee of Lehigh University.

Dr. “The extent to which health care professionals were misinformed about patients was surprising to us, and it suggests that doctors may need to more support and resources to treat such patients more effectively.”

The more ambiguous a person’s life beliefs, the more negative they were perceived by other people and health care professionals. “We found that our subjects viewed people negatively if they held negative beliefs—but they viewed them very Again in a bad way if they had irrational or delusional beliefs,” Dr. Kleinberg says.

However, surprisingly, there was little difference between the responses of doctors and lay people or patients with personal experience. Even patients living with chronic health conditions, who were familiar with the complexity of health care, were less tolerant of people who held negative beliefs, the team found . Dr. “We thought that people with diabetes themselves would be sympathetic, but that wasn’t the case at all,” says Kleinberg.

Doctors were also likely to misrepresent people’s misconceptions about health-related issues. Dr. “That was a surprising result, and it was really overwhelming,” says Kleinberg. “People are not expected to have medical knowledge, so doctors often have to correct misconceptions about health issues. . That shouldn’t be something that makes doctors look down on patients.”

Research shows that most people have at least one false belief related to health, such as the false belief that taking vitamin C will cure their chest, or that eating a sugary snack will cause death. of sugar directly, making it even more important feel free to ask for expert opinions. “We depend on our doctors to teach us and help us overcome these medical misconceptions-; but that is only possible if we are able to express our opinions freely, without fear of being judged when we are wrong “Dr. Kleinberg says.

Part of the problem is that it is often impossible for ordinary people to know whether their beliefs are right or wrong, or whether they will be considered reasonable or unreasonable. That means that patients may reject even true and reasonable beliefs in order to reduce the risk of being viewed negatively by their doctor.

More research is needed to examine the ways in which these misconceptions affect the actual interactions between patients and doctors, Dr. Kleinberg says. However, he adds, it’s clear that doctors need to do more to make their patients feel safe and comfortable during routine interactions.

“If we want to have clear communication between patients and health care professionals, we need to change the way doctors think about patients who are not well informed,” Dr. Kleinberg says. “Physicians need to overcome their tendency to judge patients, and actively encourage patients to share their opinions-; even their negative ones-; more freely than they do now.”