Mitigating cognitive bias with clinical decision support systems: an experimental study.

Bias in clinical reasoning has been identified as one of the main sources of diagnostic errors. Clinical Decision Support Systems that suggest possible diagnoses and provide information to mitigate cognitive bias could support physicians in finding a less biased diagnosis. We examine the influence of confidence and experience on the probability to adjust the decision after receiving decision aid and whether forming a first opinion beforehand or immediately receiving decision support makes a difference. 103 physicians and medical students participated in an online experiment built on decision tasks formulated to trigger availability and representativeness bias. The analysis showed that the presentation of prevalence data to mitigate availability bias changed the final probability estimate of the diagnosis significantly. Prototypical data to counteract representativeness bias showed no significant change. Medical experience, confidence in the decision, and timing of support had no significant influence on the probability to change the estimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]