Overconfidence, Time-on-Task, and Medical Errors: Is There a Relationship?

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Cognitive Psychology
• Clinical Decision-Making

Background:

• Physicians' high confidence is linked to medical errors.
• Experimental data on confidence's impact on diagnostic accuracy is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of experimentally induced high confidence on physicians' diagnostic accuracy.
• To explore the relationship between confidence levels, decision-making time, and accuracy in complex clinical scenarios.

Main Methods:

• Forty internal medicine residents were randomly assigned to high-confidence (experimental) or low-confidence (control) groups.
• Participants diagnosed eight complex clinical vignettes.
• Confidence levels, response times, and diagnostic accuracy were measured.

Main Results:

• The high-confidence group reported significantly higher confidence levels (0.75 vs. 0.61).
• No significant differences were observed in diagnostic accuracy between the groups.
• Response times did not significantly differ, though the high-confidence group trended towards quicker decisions.

Conclusions:

• Experimentally increasing physician confidence did not impact diagnostic accuracy in this study.
• Findings suggest overconfidence may be a stable personality trait rather than a easily manipulated characteristic.
• Further research should explore overconfidence as a personality trait in medical decision-making.