Non-Medical Influences upon Medical Decision-Making and Referral Behavior

This bibliography presents studies of nonmedical factors (patient, clinician, and practice variables) that influence medical decision-making. Those factors include age, gender and presentational style of the patient; age, years in practice and attitudes of the clinician; and geographical location and list size of the practice. The authors separate such factors into two cateogories. The first is decision-making in the context of general patient management, such as test-ordering, diagnoses, and treatment recommendations. The second category is decision-making in the context of referrals made by generalists to specialists. Each published study identified from an extensive literature search is presented in a structured tabular format, with a brief summary of the study features described above. The studies cited were published in years spanning 1980 to March, 2001.

Researchers and clinicians, as well as graduate and postgraduate students, in all medical disciplines will find this volume of interest, as will health psychologists, health economists and social psychologists. This work integrates published research about medical decision-making that has earlier only been fragmented and spread across a variety of journals. A chapter on methodological considerations in medical decision-making research and a chapter on models of medical decision-making are included.

DARREN FLYNN is Research Assistant in the Department of Psychology at the University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom.

PAUL VAN SCHAIK is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom.

ANNA VAN WERSCH is Reader in Psychology and a chartered health psychologist at the University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, United Kingdom.

ANDY DOUGLASS is Research Fellow and medical doctor specializing in gastroenterology at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, United Kingdom

PAUL CANN is a Consultant Gastroenterologist at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, United Kingdom.