DOSPERT+M: A survey of medical risk attitudes in the United States

Background: The Domain-Specific Risk Taking scale (DOSPERT) has been recommended as a tool for measuring risk attitudes in medical studies, but does not contain items specific to health care. Butler, et al. (2012) developed a medical risk domain subscale for DOSPERT. Objective: To characterize medical risk attitudes in a nationally-representative U.S. sample using the full DOSPERT scale with the medical risk domain add-on (DOSPERT+M), and examine associations with other risk domains. Methods: Members of a nationally-representative online panel (KnowledgePanel®) were randomized to complete pairs of DOSPERT+M tasks (risk attitude, risk perception, expected benefits). We explored relationships among domains through correlational and factor analysis; we tested the hypothesis that the medical risk domain and DOSPERT’s health/safety domains were not highly correlated. Participants: Three hundred forty-four panelists. Results: The medical risk domain subscale had low inter-item reliability in the risk-taking task and moderate inter-item reliability in the other tasks. Medical risk domain scores were poorly correlated with the DOSPERT health/safety domain. Exploratory factor analysis largely recovered the expected DOSPERT domain structure. Conclusion: Attitudes toward risky medical activities may constitute a distinct domain from those measured by the standard DOSPERT items. Additional work is required to develop a medical risk subscale with higher inter-item reliability.