Role of communicating diagnostic uncertainty in the safety-netting process: insights from a vignette study

Safety-netting is intended to protect against harm from uncertainty in diagnosis/disease trajectory. Despite recommendations to communicate diagnostic uncertainty when safety-netting, this is not always done.

To explore how and why doctors safety-netted in response to several clinical scenarios, within the broader context of exploring how doctors communicate diagnostic uncertainty.

Doctors working in internal medical specialties (n=36) from five hospitals were given vignettes in a randomised order (all depicting different clinical scenarios involving diagnostic uncertainty). After reading each, they told an interviewer what they would tell a 'typical patient' in this situation. A follow-up semistructured interview explored reasons for their communication. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded. We examined how participants safety-netted using a content analysis approach, and why they safety-netting with thematic analysis of the semistructured follow-up interviews using thematic analysis.

We observed n=78 instances of safety-netting (across 108 vignette encounters). We found significant variation in how participants safety-netted. Safety-netting was common (although not universal), but clinicians differed in the detail provided about symptoms to be alert for, and the action advised. Although many viewed safety-netting as an important tool for managing diagnostic uncertainty, diagnostic uncertainty was infrequently explicitly discussed; most advised patients to return if symptoms worsened or new 'red flag' symptoms developed, but they rarely linked this directly to the possibility of diagnostic error. Some participants expressed concerns that communicating diagnostic uncertainty when safety-netting may cause anxiety for patients or could drive inappropriate reattendance/over-investigation.

Participants safety-netted variously, even when presented with identical clinical information. Although safety-netting was seen as important in avoiding diagnostic error, concerns about worrying patients may have limited discussion about diagnostic uncertainty. Research is needed to determine whether communicating diagnostic uncertainty makes safety-netting more effective at preventing harm associated with diagnostic error, and whether it causes significant patient anxiety.