Abstract
Background: Decisions based on erroneous assessments may result in unrealistic patient and family expectations, suboptimal advice, incorrect treatment, or costly medical errors. Regret is a common emotion in daily life that involves counterfactual thinking when considering alternative choices. Limited information is available on care-related regret affecting healthcare professionals managing patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).Methods: We reviewed identified gaps in the literature by searching for the combination of the following keywords in Pubmed: “regret and decision,” “regret and physicians,” and “regret and nurses.” An expert panel of neurologists, a nurse, a psychiatrist, a pharmacist, and a psychometrics specialist participated in the study design. Care-related regret will be assessed by a behavioral battery including the standardized questionnaire Regret Intensity Scale (RIS-10) and 15 new specific items. Six items will evaluate regret in the most common social domains affecting individuals (financial, driving, sports—recreation, work, own health, and confidence in people). Another nine items will explore past and recent regret experiences in common situations experienced by healthcare professionals caring for patients with MS. We will also assess concomitant behavioral characteristics of healthcare professionals that could be associated with regret: coping strategies, life satisfaction, mood, positive social behaviors, occupational burnout, and tolerance to uncertainty.Planned Outcomes: This is the first comprehensive and standardized protocol to assess care-related regret and associated behavioral factors among healthcare professionals managing MS. These results will allow to understand and ameliorate regret in healthcare professionals.Spanish National Register (SL42129-20/598-E).
Highlights
Decision making in medical care is a complex, cognitively and emotionally demanding task [1]
The DECISIONS-multiple sclerosis (MS) is a non-interventional study to assess the impact of care-related regret on healthcare providers managing patients with MS
We propose a standardized approach to investigate care-related regret in the medical field after completing an exhaustive literature review and selecting validated behavioral tools to explore different dimensions of regret
Summary
Decision making in medical care is a complex, cognitively and emotionally demanding task [1]. Advances in therapeutic options with different safety and efficacy profiles and higher clinical demands add other challenges to healthcare professionals when facing diagnostic or therapeutic choices. Decisions influenced by cognitive biases or emotions may result in unrealistic patient and family expectations, incorrect advice, or suboptimal treatment decisions, leading to poorer clinical outcomes [2, 3]. Regret is a cognitive emotion that involves counterfactual thinking, when considering alternative choices [4]. Healthcare professionals are vulnerable to regret given their limited education in both decision making and risk management at medical schools [2]. Decisions based on erroneous assessments may result in unrealistic patient and family expectations, suboptimal advice, incorrect treatment, or costly medical errors. Regret is a common emotion in daily life that involves counterfactual thinking when considering alternative choices. Limited information is available on care-related regret affecting healthcare professionals managing patients with multiple sclerosis (MS)
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