Table 2.
Techniques That May Help Physicians Improve Their Patients’ Decisions
| Persuasive Techniques | Examples of Beneficent Persuasion |
|---|---|
| Vivid depictions6 | When discussing risks of continuing to smoke with patients, show them ventilated COPD patients in a medical ICU or a video of a patient with advanced lung cancer |
| To offset parents’ concerns about the risks of vaccination, deploy your clinic’s waiting room television to show videos of children who have suffered from not being vaccinated | |
| Defaults7 | Make it policy to schedule evidence-based screenings (eg, colorectal, mammography, HIV testing) for your patients automatically, framing these as the default option similarly to how you might frame cholesterol screening |
| Regret8 | Encourage your patients to think about the regret they may feel if they do not follow recommendations regarding cancer screening and an early cancer diagnosis is subsequently missed |
| Encourage your patients to anticipate the regret they may feel (toward themselves, toward their children) if they continue to smoke and then develop lung cancer | |
| Framing9–13 | When discussing mammography with patients for whom it is indicated, frame the associated risk reduction in mortality from breast cancer in terms of relative rather than absolute risks |
| When counseling healthy patients with no risk factors who want a full-bodyCT scan “just to be sure,” explain risk reduction of CT scan in absolute terms rather than relative terms, or focus their attention on the risks of the CT scan, including the risks of receiving false-positive results | |
| List benefits first, side-effects next, and then repeat benefits again | |
| Frame results of self-neglect in terms of losses instead of discussing the gains of self-care. | |
| Refocusing14,15 | Encourage newly disabled patients to think about how well they adapted to new challenges in the past and all the capacities for future happiness that they have retained despite their injury. |
COPD = chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; CT = computed tomography; HIV = human immunodeficiency virus; ICU = intensive care unit.