Use of communication theories to decrease diagnostic error

Abstract

Diagnostic error is the universal mistake in medical care, being the cause of many deaths, injuries,and the most expensive fault in healthcare. One way to control for this error is to explore the most relevant path of communication in the health environment; the doctor-patient communication during anamnesis. Towards that effort, this paper serves to revise the framework of the Theory of Motivated Information Management in an empirical test that looks into the physician’s perspective of the information management process. Since this theory has been successful in predicting information-seeking decisions, 50 physicians from various specialties across Switzerland and Costa Rica voluntarily completed a survey to provide data on how their level of uncertainty drives their information seeking processes from patients in acute care. Findings contribute to our understanding of information seeking processes, what drives health providers and what are the strongest determinants of this process. Having identified eight different categories in the anamnesis stage, this model seems to have the best fit on only one of them, Chief Complaint. This study allows further research to elaborate and distinguish the details of the TMIM from the health care providers’ point of view; the basis shows a potential fit for the anamnesis stage.