Post-Hoc Enthusiasm and Wariness

Health Behavior Clinical Trial

— PHEW  

Official title:

Post-Hoc Enthusiasm and Wariness

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Not yet recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT05686889
• Other study ID #: 5692
• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: May 1, 2023
• Est. completion date: September 1, 2028

Study information

• Verified date: January 2023
• Source: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
• Contact: Donald A Redelmeier, MD, MSc
• Phone: 4164806999
• Email: dar[@]ices.on.ca
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial 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.

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).

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Enrollment: 100
• Est. completion date: September 1, 2028
• Est. primary completion date: September 1, 2023
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: N/A and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Community pharmacist

Exclusion Criteria:

• Outside Ontario

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Health Behavior

Intervention

Other:
• Patient self-report
Simulated patient following structured script

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
n/a

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Response variable in each survey is a binary recommendation whether to continue the vitamin supplement or discontinue the vitamin supplement	Health provider clinical recommendation	Short-term (less than 5 minutes)