Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Psychology, health and illness
- Adolescent lifestyle
- Age and physical functioning
- Age and cognitive functioning
- Ageing and health
- Architecture and health
- Attributions and health
- Childhood influences on health
- Children's perceptions of illness and death
- Coping with bereavement
- Coping with chronic illness
- Coping with chronic pain
- Coping with death and dying
- Coping with stressful medical procedures
- Cultural and ethnic factors in health
- Delay in seeking help
- Diet and health
- Disability
- Emotional expression and health
- Expectations and health
- Gender issues and women's health
- The health belief model
- Health-related behaviours: common factors
- Hospitalization in adults
- Hospitalization in children
- Hostility and Type A behaviour in coronary artery disease
- Lay beliefs about health and illness
- Life events and health
- Men's health
- Noise: effects on health
- Pain: a multidimensional perspective
- Perceived control
- Personality and health
- Physical activity and health
- Placebos
- Psychoneuroimmunology
- Psychosomatics
- Quality of life
- Religion and health
- Risk perception and health behaviour
- Self-efficacy in health functioning
- Sexual risk behaviour
- Sleep and health
- Social support and health
- Socioeconomic status and health
- Stigma
- Stress and health
- Symptom perception
- Theory of planned behaviour
- Transtheoretical model of behaviour change
- Unemployment and health
- Brain imaging and function
- Communication assessment
- Coping assessment
- Diagnostic interviews and clinical practice
- Disability assessment
- Health cognition assessment
- Health status assessment
- Illness cognition assessment
- IQ testing
- Assessment of mood
- Neuropsychological assessment
- Neuropsychological assessment of attention and executive functioning
- Neuropsychological assessment of learning and memory
- Pain assessment
- Patient satisfaction assessment
- Psychoneuroimmunology assessments
- Qualitative assessment
- Quality of life assessment
- Social support assessment
- Stress assessment
- Behaviour therapy
- Biofeedback
- Cognitive behaviour therapy
- Community-based interventions
- Counselling
- Group therapy
- Health promotion
- Hypnosis
- Motivational interviewing
- Neuropsychological rehabilitation
- Pain management
- Physical activity interventions
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- Psychosocial care of the elderly
- Relaxation training
- Self-management interventions
- Social support interventions
- Stress management
- Worksite interventions
- Adherence to treatment
- Attitudes of health professionals
- Breaking bad news
- Burnout in health professionals
- Communicating risk
- Healthcare professional–patient communication
- Healthcare work environments
- Informed consent
- Interprofessional education in essence
- Medical decision-making
- Medical interviewing
- Patient-centred healthcare
- Patient safety and iatrogenesis
- Patient satisfaction
- Psychological support for healthcare professionals
- Reassurance
- Screening in healthcare: general issues
- Shiftwork and health
- Stress in health professionals
- Surgery
- Teaching communication skills
- Written communication
- Medical topics
- Index
- References
Medical decision-making
from Psychology, health and illness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Psychology, health and illness
- Adolescent lifestyle
- Age and physical functioning
- Age and cognitive functioning
- Ageing and health
- Architecture and health
- Attributions and health
- Childhood influences on health
- Children's perceptions of illness and death
- Coping with bereavement
- Coping with chronic illness
- Coping with chronic pain
- Coping with death and dying
- Coping with stressful medical procedures
- Cultural and ethnic factors in health
- Delay in seeking help
- Diet and health
- Disability
- Emotional expression and health
- Expectations and health
- Gender issues and women's health
- The health belief model
- Health-related behaviours: common factors
- Hospitalization in adults
- Hospitalization in children
- Hostility and Type A behaviour in coronary artery disease
- Lay beliefs about health and illness
- Life events and health
- Men's health
- Noise: effects on health
- Pain: a multidimensional perspective
- Perceived control
- Personality and health
- Physical activity and health
- Placebos
- Psychoneuroimmunology
- Psychosomatics
- Quality of life
- Religion and health
- Risk perception and health behaviour
- Self-efficacy in health functioning
- Sexual risk behaviour
- Sleep and health
- Social support and health
- Socioeconomic status and health
- Stigma
- Stress and health
- Symptom perception
- Theory of planned behaviour
- Transtheoretical model of behaviour change
- Unemployment and health
- Brain imaging and function
- Communication assessment
- Coping assessment
- Diagnostic interviews and clinical practice
- Disability assessment
- Health cognition assessment
- Health status assessment
- Illness cognition assessment
- IQ testing
- Assessment of mood
- Neuropsychological assessment
- Neuropsychological assessment of attention and executive functioning
- Neuropsychological assessment of learning and memory
- Pain assessment
- Patient satisfaction assessment
- Psychoneuroimmunology assessments
- Qualitative assessment
- Quality of life assessment
- Social support assessment
- Stress assessment
- Behaviour therapy
- Biofeedback
- Cognitive behaviour therapy
- Community-based interventions
- Counselling
- Group therapy
- Health promotion
- Hypnosis
- Motivational interviewing
- Neuropsychological rehabilitation
- Pain management
- Physical activity interventions
- Psychodynamic psychotherapy
- Psychosocial care of the elderly
- Relaxation training
- Self-management interventions
- Social support interventions
- Stress management
- Worksite interventions
- Adherence to treatment
- Attitudes of health professionals
- Breaking bad news
- Burnout in health professionals
- Communicating risk
- Healthcare professional–patient communication
- Healthcare work environments
- Informed consent
- Interprofessional education in essence
- Medical decision-making
- Medical interviewing
- Patient-centred healthcare
- Patient safety and iatrogenesis
- Patient satisfaction
- Psychological support for healthcare professionals
- Reassurance
- Screening in healthcare: general issues
- Shiftwork and health
- Stress in health professionals
- Surgery
- Teaching communication skills
- Written communication
- Medical topics
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
Doctors constantly make decisions that affect the health and lives of other people. They gather evidence by interpreting the signs and symptoms of the patient, conducting examinations and determining appropriate tests. All of these actions imply the use of judgement and decision-making. Using such evidence they may form a diagnosis and conclude what, if anything, is to be done. In the current healthcare climate, patients are also encouraged to participate in decision-making, either by sharing in it, or by making their own informed decisions, on the basis of the evidence presented to them by doctors (Charles et al., 1997). Many of these decisions will be based on clear evidence from the patient and tried and tested methods drawn from the doctor's medical knowledge and may seem quite straightforward. However, very often, simple medical principles and rules will not be available. From the perspective of formal Decision Analysis, in order to make an optimal decision, a doctor and patient must identify all the options available, work out their potential outcomes and the probability that these outcomes will occur. They also need to assess how good or bad that outcome occurring would be. Such a process is often difficult for several reasons. Firstly, it is difficult to identify the options and outcomes and their associated probabilities. As the evidence base of medicine develops this may become easier, but where clear evidence about options, or actuarial statistics about their outcomes, are not available doctors have to rely on their judgement.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 454 - 459Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007