The Cognitive Psychology of Diagnostic Errors

Abstract

Health care involves complex decision making, often under uncertain, ambiguous, and time-sensitive conditions. Clinicians typically face the greatest uncertainty when making diagnostic decisions; common, undifferentiated symptoms paired with increasing prevalence of complex comorbidities, continuously and rapidly evolving scientific evidence, and often fragmented information systems are just a few of the hurdles clinicians must navigate as part of daily diagnostic decision making. In this review, the current state of the science concerning the cognitive psychology of diagnostic errors is discussed, including models of diagnostic reasoning, common errors: heuristics and biases, and practical implications and interventions. Figures show a conceptual model for diagnostic errors; diagnostic and therapeutic cycles; relationships among heuristics, biases, premature closure, and diagnostic errors; Reason’s (2000) Swiss cheese model; and tradeoffs versus improvements in diagnostic performance as illustrated by the receiver operating characteristic curve. Tables list important reasons for understanding the foundational cognitive models of diagnostic reasoning; a glossary of key diagnostic error–related definitions; three models of cognitive decision making; a summary of clinical reasoning models; steps of diagnostic decision making; examples of diagnostic errors resulting from representativeness, availability, and anchoring and adjustment; categories of countermeasures for error reduction interventions; examples of cognitively, systems-, and patient-focused countermeasures for selected biases; a summary of cognitively focused countermeasures to cognitive bias; key problem “classes” where problem- or context-specific solutions might be applied; types of system-focused countermeasures; and patient-focused countermeasures to avoid diagnostic error. This review contains 5 highly rendered figures, 12 tables, and 120 references.