IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v25y2005i6p609-613.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Prospect Theory Explain Risk-Seeking Behavior by Terminally Ill Patients?

Author

Listed:
  • Emma B. Rasiel

    (Center for Clinical and Genetic Economics, Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC)

  • Kevin P. Weinfurt

    (Center for Clinical and Genetic Economics, Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC)

  • Kevin A. Schulman

    (Center for Clinical and Genetic Economics, Duke Clinical Research Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, kevin.schulman@duke.edu)

Abstract

Patients with life-threatening conditions sometimes appear to make risky treatment decisions as their condition declines, contradicting the risk-averse behavior predicted by expected utility theory. Prospect theory accommodates such decisions by describing how individuals evaluate outcomes relative to a reference point and how they exhibit risk-seeking behavior over losses relative to that point. The authors show that a patient’s reference point for his or her health is a key factor in determining which treatment option the patient selects, and they examine under what circumstances the more risky option is selected. The authors argue that patients’ reference points may take time to adjust following a change in diagnosis, with implications for predicting under what circumstances a patient may select experimental or conventional therapies or select no treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Emma B. Rasiel & Kevin P. Weinfurt & Kevin A. Schulman, 2005. "Can Prospect Theory Explain Risk-Seeking Behavior by Terminally Ill Patients?," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 25(6), pages 609-613, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:25:y:2005:i:6:p:609-613
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X05282642
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X05282642
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X05282642?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gary Becker & Kevin Murphy & Tomas Philipson, 2007. "The Value of Life Near its End and Terminal Care," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000001428, David K. Levine.
    2. Elodie Adida, 2021. "Outcome-Based Pricing for New Pharmaceuticals via Rebates," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 892-913, February.
    3. Tomas J. Philipson & Gary Becker & Dana Goldman & Kevin M. Murphy, 2010. "Terminal Care and The Value of Life Near Its End," NBER Working Papers 15649, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Sean Murphy & Robert Rosenman & Jonathan Yoder & Daniel Friesner, 2011. "Patients' perceptions and treatment effectiveness," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(24), pages 3275-3288.
    5. Bengt Jönsson & Grace Hampson & Jonathan Michaels & Adrian Towse & J.-Matthias Graf Schulenburg & Olivier Wong, 2019. "Advanced therapy medicinal products and health technology assessment principles and practices for value-based and sustainable healthcare," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(3), pages 427-438, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:25:y:2005:i:6:p:609-613. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.