Decision Making

Question 1

what is fast and slow thinking in decision making

Answer 1

1. fast thinking- system 1
   - pattern, skilled execution
2. slow thinking- system 2
   - requires energy, uses logic, is sometimes overlooked due to laziness used to check system 1

Question 2

name the different types of cognitive bias

Answer 2

1. fixation bias
2. confirmation bias
3. availability bias
4. anchoring

Question 3

what is fixation bias

Answer 3

letting 1 factor overwhelm your decisions, instead of weighing all of your options objectively

Question 4

what is confirmation bias

Answer 4

eg. suspecting a patient has an infection and the raised WBCs proves this

Question 5

what is availability bias

Answer 5

eg. recent missed pulmonary embolism prompts excessive CT pulmonary angiogram scanning in low risk patients

Question 6

what is anchoring

Answer 6

when people consider a particular value for an unknown quantity and then asked to estimate that quantity

Question 7

what is needed to calculate probability

Answer 7

base rate and likelihood of the evidence

Question 8

what is Bayes rule

Answer 8

know the base rate and adjust on new evidence

Question 9

what steps should be followed when making decisions

Answer 9

1. look at the base rate
2. adjust this based on new evidence
3. other possibilities- seek confirmation
4. look with hindsight at why your intervention may be wrong
   - beware of cognitive bias
5. check you haven’t missed a serious or potentially serious MRP
6. always reflect on what you do and get feedback on how you manage patients