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How Clinical and Personal Information Shape Physicians' Risk Judgments

NCT07162376 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 300

Last updated 2026-01-16

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Physicians often form quick judgments about the risk for serious disease when interacting with patients. Underestimating risk can lead to underuse of diagnostic testing and untreated illness, which can worsen patient outcomes. On the other hand, overestimating risk can lead to overuse of diagnostic testing, which is costly for health systems.

To form judgments of risk, physicians should attend to a host of validated factors that are predictive of disease. However, research suggests that physicians may rely on demographic factors-such as race and gender. Physicians' judgments could also be influenced by non-health-related, personal information about their patients (e.g., hobbies, nicknames), which may moderate the impact of demographics on those judgments.

The investigators examine these dynamics in the context of heart disease. The History, Electrocardiogram, Age, Risk factors and Troponin (HEART) Score is a validated model that specifies a correspondence between certain risk factors and the likelihood of Major Adverse Cardiac Event (MACE). Importantly, there are substantially different diagnostic tests (e.g., noninvasive stress test versus coronary angiogram) that should be used depending on a patient's MACE likelihood.

Specifically, the investigators have three research questions:

* Research Question 1 (RQ1): How accurate are physicians relative to the benchmarks from the HEART score model?
* Research Question 2 (RQ2): How do clinically-relevant risk factors (e.g., smoking history), race, gender, and personal information disclosure influence risk judgments?
* Research Question 3 (RQ3): Does personal information disclosure moderate the effects of race and gender on risk judgments?

Note that when the investigators discuss accuracy and error, they are referring to the comparison of physician judgments to the HEART score model benchmarks.

Conditions

  • Major Adverse Cardiac Event (MACE)

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Personal Information Disclosure

Each profile also contains non-health related personal information that the patient has disclosed (e.g., nickname, hobbies).

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Maryland, College Park

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Joseph Reiff, PhD · University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business

  • Aneesh Rai, PhD · University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2025-09-16
Primary Completion
2025-09-26
Completion
2025-09-26

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT07162376 on ClinicalTrials.gov