Variations in medical practice have been widely documented and are a linchpin in explanations of health disparities. Evidence shows that clinical decision making varies according to patient, provider and health system characteristics. However, less is known about the processes underlying these...

The focus of health promotion is moving from the level of individuals to organizations, communities and broader social policy. Traditional quantitative methods (e.g. social surverys and experimental designs) which are variously appropriate at the level of individual behavior change require...

The objective of this study was to determine whether assertive patient behavior influences physician decision-making in the treatment of older breast cancer patients. One hundred and twenty-eight physicians saw videotapes depicting women seeking care for breast cancer and then recommended...

Although research in the past twenty years has resulted in an increasingly sophisticated understanding of clinical decision making processes, the dominant approach in this area of inquiry remains limited. Most studies emphasize normative models of how decisions ought to be made, others attempt...

An empirical puzzle has emerged over the last several decades of research on variation in clinical decision making involving mixed effects of physician experience. There is some evidence that physicians with greater experience may provide poorer quality care than their less experienced...

Objectives To (1) examine the influence of patient and provider attributes on physicians' diagnostic certainty and (2) assess the effect of diagnostic certainty on clinical therapeutic actions.Methods Factorial experiment of 128 generalist physicians using identical clinically authentic...

Existing conceptualizations of the doctor-patient relationship provide little insight into this complex and perhaps now nonexistent "relationship" in the 21st century. Today, the word "relationship" as applied to the doctor-patient experience may be a misnomer--or at least an inappropriate...

Previous research has consistently demonstrated adverse physical and psychological effects following the death of a spouse. Conclusions regarding the effects of widowhood have been hampered, however, by such methodological limitations as lack of adequate comparison groups, non-random samples of...