Post-Hoc Enthusiasm and Wariness

NCT ID: NCT05686889

Last Updated: 2023-01-17

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 100 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2023-05-01
• Study Completion Date: 2028-09-01

Brief Summary

The post-hoc fallacy (also termed the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc fallacy) has been recognized for centuries with endless relevance. The general concept in medical care is that patients who improve after a treatment are not necessary patients who improve because of a treatment. Modern medicine provides multiple opportunities to examine such pitfalls of judgment due to the prevailing uncertainty, incompleteness of our understanding pathogenic mechanisms, and natural tendency to connect treatments to outcomes. In this study, we will investigate whether judgments about vitamin supplementation might demonstrate the post-hoc fallacy.

Detailed Description

We plan to conduct a brief survey of pharmacies portraying a patient in two slightly different versions. One version will portray the patient who feels better after starting a vitamin supplement whereas another version will portray the patient who feels unchanged after starting a vitamin supplement. The patients will be randomly assigned to participants and otherwise contain identical information. Judgments will be measured by eliciting participants recommendation about continuing the vitamin (Appendix_Script).

Conditions

Health Behavior

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Blinding Strategy: DOUBLE

Study Groups

Success

Symptomatic improvement present

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Patient self-report

Intervention Type: OTHER

Simulated patient following structured script

Failure

Symptomatic improvement absent

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Patient self-report

Intervention Type: OTHER

Simulated patient following structured script

Interventions

Patient self-report

Simulated patient following structured script

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Community pharmacist

Exclusion Criteria

• Outside Ontario

• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Dr. Don Redelmeier

Senior Scientist

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Donald A Redelmeier, MD, MSc

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Central Contacts

Donald A Redelmeier, MD, MSc

Role: CONTACT

dar@ices.on.ca

4164806999

Other Identifiers

5692

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id