IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v12y1992i1p32-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relation of Physicians' Predicted Probabilities of Pneumonia to Their Utilities for Ordering Chest X-rays to Detect Pneumonia

Author

Listed:
  • Paul S. Heckerling
  • Thomas G. Tape
  • Robert S. Wigton

Abstract

To investigate the relation between physicians' predicted probabilities of pneumonia and their utilities for ordering chest x-rays to detect pneumonia, the authors studied 52 physicians who ordered chest x-rays of 886 patients presenting to an emergency department with fever or respiratory complaints Physicians estimated the probability of pneumonia prior to obtaining the results of the chest x-ray. Utilities were assessed by asking physicians to consider a hypothetical patient presenting with acute respiratory symptoms, with unknown chest x-ray status, and to rank on a scale from +50 ("best thing I could do") to - 50 ("worst thing I could do") their rating scale utilities for not diagnosing pneumonia and not ordering a chest x-ray when the patient had pneumonia (i.e, missing a pneumonia), and for diagnosing pneumonia and ordering a chest x-ray when the patient did not have pneumonia (i.e, ordering an unnecessary x-ray) The utility for ordering an unnecessary x-ray was negatively correlated with average predicted probability (r = -0 1495, p = 0 29), whereas the utility for missing a pneumonia was positively correlated with average predicted probability (r = 0 2254, p = 0.11), although the correlations were not statistically significant. Relative chagrin, defined as the difference in these utilities, was significantly inversely correlated with average predicted probability (r = -0 2992, p

Suggested Citation

  • Paul S. Heckerling & Thomas G. Tape & Robert S. Wigton, 1992. "Relation of Physicians' Predicted Probabilities of Pneumonia to Their Utilities for Ordering Chest X-rays to Detect Pneumonia," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 12(1), pages 32-38, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:12:y:1992:i:1:p:32-38
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X9201200106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X9201200106
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X9201200106?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen D. Nightingale, 1987. "Risk Preference and Laboratory Use," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 7(3), pages 168-172, August.
    2. Arnold M. Epstein & Barbara J. McNeil, 1985. "Physician Characteristics and Organizational Factors Influencing Use of Ambulatory Tests," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 5(4), pages 401-415, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Davis, Elizabeth B. & Ashton, Robert H., 2002. "Threshold adjustment in response to asymmetric loss functions: The case of auditors' "substantial doubt" thresholds," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 1082-1099, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. N/A, 1987. "Editorials," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 7(3), pages 136-137, August.
    2. Kuhberger, Anton, 1998. "The Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions: A Meta-analysis," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 23-55, July.
    3. Kuhberger, Anton & Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael & Perner, Josef, 1999. "The Effects of Framing, Reflection, Probability, and Payoff on Risk Preference in Choice Tasks, ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 204-231, June.
    4. David R. Holtgrave & Frank Lawler & Stephen J. Spann, 1991. "Physicians' Risk Attitudes, Laboratory Usage, and Referral Decisions," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 11(2), pages 125-130, June.
    5. Arthur S. Elstein & Gerald B. Holzman & Laurie J. Belzer & Ruth D. Ellis, 1992. "Hormonal Replacement Therapy," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 12(4), pages 265-273, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:12:y:1992:i:1:p:32-38. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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.