Clinical trial NCT04803448: Patient Doctor Lies
Official title: Patient Doctor Lies: When is Privacy Assurance a Bad Thing? A Randomized Clinical Trial
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Patient Lying
Privacy Statements
Risk Statements
Benefit Statements
Patient Lie Detection
Keywords: patient lies
lie detection
privacy
risk
benefits
Lead sponsor: University of Utah
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2021-03-17
Enrollment: 619
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 80
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Participants are randomly assigned one of 1 intervention statements and then asked health care questions. This is a between subject 6 cell study, the dependent variable is the amount of lying as measured by answer adjustment and biometric mouse-movement under each intervention statement.
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: Accurate patient information disclosure is critical to provide optimal treatment. Methods that can detect and then increase the truthfulness of information are relatively unknown.

To investigate the impact of communication about privacy, benefits, and risk on patient truthfulness, the investigators test two new methods to detect patient truthfulness and demonstrate the effects of privacy notices (e.g. HIPPA statements).

Participants include a national online sample randomly assigned to one of six treatment statements that might be typically given before health information was requested. The assigned treatments include one or mix of the following: privacy notice, statement of the benefits of accurate disclosure, and statement of the risks of inaccurate disclosure and control of no statement before being asked typical health questions.

The investigators propose that based on elaboration likelihood model, statements reminding participants of their privacy will increase lying.

The investigators hypothesis the use of a new biometric mouse movement lie detection method and answer adjustment can measure patient lies.

The investigators hypothesis that reminders of the risk of not telling the truth will reduce lying due to risk aversion.

Lastly the investigators hypothesis that statements of benefits of answering truthfully will increase truthfulness.

Detailed description: After agreeing to an IRB-approved modified consent form designed to hide the true purpose of the study to detect lying, all participants will complete the CESD-10 depression scale. This validated measure of depression was used in order to simulate the false pretense of the experiment.

This online survey randomly assigns participating adults to one of six intervention statements after which they are asked eight typical questions about their health. The statements include:

1. control (no stimuli)
2. benefit (statement about the benefits of accurate information disclosure)
3. risk (statement about the risks of inaccurate information disclosure)
4. privacy (a traditional medical privacy notification and seal image)
5. privacy + benefit
6. privacy + risk After this intervention participants are asked to disclose eight items of personal health information, including their weight, height, alcohol intake, illegal drug use, prescription drug abuse, smoking, exercise, and sexual activity. We do not assess these actual numbers. They will be the basis for assessing truthfulness by answer adjustment or biometric mouse-movement.

An example of an intervention benefit statement followed by a health question about weight reads: "What is your weight? Accurately answering this will increase the likelihood of a correct diagnosis." A risk statement reads: "What is your weight? Inaccurately answering this will increase the likelihood of an incorrect diagnosis." A privacy statement read: "What is your weight? We will not share or sell this personal health information with anyone. We will comply with all HIPPA regulations regarding the protection of your data."

The dependent variable - patient truthfulness, will be measured in two ways.

1. First measure of truthfulness will be a biometric mouse-movement measure. As participants answer the health care questions coded programming will measure the mouse-movement arc distance and time to response for biometric lie detection. This measurement is completed when participants move to their response to each health question.
2. Second measure of truthfulness will be the answer adjustment method. Participants will be given a summary of their answers from their health questions in a read-only format and asked to indicate how OVER of UNDERSTATED each initial response was (e.g., "You indicated that your current weight is 185 lbs. How overstated or understated is that value?") on a scale from -5 (understated) to 5 (overstated). The absolute value of their scaled response represents the extent to which participants' initial response deviated from the truth. This the unit of measure to be used in analysis.
3. The answer adjustment values and the mouse tracking results provide a more holistic measure of truthfulness than one alone.

No personal identifiers are collected. Age and gender are collected.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Adults
* Individuals 18-80 years
* English speaking
* Live in the United States

Exclusion Criteria:

* Participants that do not complete the survey

Primary outcomes:
measure: Patient truthfulness - biometric mouse-movement distance
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness - biometric mouse-movement time
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness Weight - answer adjustment from -5 to 5 for each health question
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness Height - answer adjustment from -5 to 5 for each health question
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness Drink Alcohol - answer adjustment from -5 to 5 for each health question
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness Drug Activity - answer adjustment from -5 to 5 for each health question
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness Prescription Use - answer adjustment from -5 to 5 for each health question
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness Cigarette Smoking- answer adjustment from -5 to 5 for each health question
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness Exercise Activity- answer adjustment from -5 to 5 for each health question
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
measure: Patient truthfulness Sexual Activity - answer adjustment from -5 to 5 for each health question
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Gender
timeFrame: The time frame of data collection will be from when the survey is opened by the participant until it is completed and submitted. This will take 10 - 20 minutes.
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Provo
country: United States
facility: Brigham Young University
state: Utah
Study officials:
affiliation: Brigham Young University
name: Mark Keith, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
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