NCT01752673

The Visualization of Uncertainty in Clinical Diagnostic Reasoning for Pulmonary Embolism

The Visualization of Uncertainty in Clinical Diagnostic Reasoning for Pulmonary Embolism: a Randomized Controlled Trial.

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Calgary · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 24 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Medical reasoning is a form of inquiry that examines the thought processes involved in making medical decisions. When physicians are faced with patients' symptoms or signs, their thought processes follow either direct shortcuts to suspect a diagnosis or go into a deeper and more analytic process to reach a diagnosis. The second pathway is less prone to biases and errors. This study explores whether the use of an interactive visual display of probabilities of pulmonary embolism generated from positive or negative test results will increase the adherence to evidence based guidelines in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.

Conditions

• Pulmonary Embolism
• Diagnostic Uncertainty
• Clinical Reasoning
• Evidence Based Medicine
• Visualization of Uncertainty

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Visualized pulmonary embolism computer task model	This group of participants was presented and trained to use a visual representation of diagnostic pathway for pulmonary embolism. The design of this visual representation is based on Bayes theorem and cognition enhancing visual design principles.
OTHER	Didactic review lecture	This group of participants was presented with a didactic lecture covering the diagnostic approach of pulmonary embolism.

Timeline

• Start date: 2011-03-01
• Primary completion: 2011-10-01
• Completion: 2011-10-01
• First posted: 2012-12-19
• Last updated: 2012-12-19

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada