NDLI: Failure to demonstrate effects of interruptions on diagnostic reasoning: three experiments

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Alajaji, Mai Saleh, Nada AlKhulaif, Ali Hassan Mamede, Silvia Rotgans, Jerome I. Sukkarieh, Hatouf AlHarbi, Nouf Magzoub, Mohi Eldin Schmidt, Henk G.
Abstract	Background Diagnostic error is a major source of patient suffering. Researchshows that physicians experience frequent interruptions while being engaged with patients and indicate that diagnostic accuracy may be impaired as a result. Since most studies in the field are observational, there is as yet no evidence suggesting a direct causal link between being interrupted and diagnostic error. Theexperiments reported in this article were intended to assess this hypothesis. Methods Three experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that interruptions hurt diagnostic reasoning and increase time on task. In the first experiment (N = 42), internal medicine residents, while diagnosing vignettes of actual clinical cases were interrupted halfway with a task unrelated to medicine, solving word-spotting puzzles and anagrams. In the second experiment (N = 78), the interruptions were medically relevant ones. In the third experiment (N = 30), we put additional time pressure on the participants. In all these experiments, a control group diagnosed the cases without interruption. Dependent variables were diagnostic accuracy and amount of time spent on the vignettes. Results In none of the experiments interruptions were demonstrated to influence diagnostic accuracy. In Experiment 1: Mean of interrupted group was 0.88 (SD = 0.37) versus non- interrupted group 0.91 (SD = 0.32). In Experiment 2: Mean of interrupted group was 0.95 (SD = 0.32) versus non-interrupted group 0.94 (SD = 0.38). In Experiment 3: Mean of interrupted group was 0.42 (SD = 0.12) versus non-interrupted group 0.37 (SD = 0.08). Although interrupted residents in all experiments needed more time to complete the diagnostic task, only in Experiment 2, this effect was statistically significant. Conclusions These three experiments, taken together, failed to demonstrate negative effects of interruptions on diagnostic reasoning. Perhaps physicians who are interrupted may still have sufficient cognitive resources available to recover from it most of the time.
Related Links	https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12909-022-03212-1.pdf
Ending Page	10
Page Count	10
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	14726920
DOI	10.1186/s12909-022-03212-1
Journal	BMC Medical Education
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	22
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2022-03-16
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Medical Education Theory of Medicine Bioethics Diagnostic error Cognition Internal medicine Emergency medicine Theory of Medicine/Bioethics
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Education Medicine
Journal Impact Factor	2.7/2023
5-Year Journal Impact Factor	3.4/2023

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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