Abstract
Background
It is not known whether and in which way patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
and patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) are affected by the information frame
when judging the outcome of a medication. This study aimed to compare framing effects
between healthy older adults, MCI patients, and mild AD patients.
Methods
Participants performed a framing task where they had to judge the outcome of unknown
medications on a 7-point scale. Medications were described either by using positive
terms (positive frame) or by using negative terms (negative frame).
Results
All three groups showed framing effects and judged more favourably the positively-framed
medications than the negatively-framed medications. However, framing effects were
more pronounced in MCI patients and mild AD patients than in healthy older adults.
Conclusions
This study suggests that the way information is conveyed is critical and that health-related
decisions of patients with slight cognitive impairment may be relevantly biased by
positive and negative formulations. The development of standardised, easily understandable
means of patient information is recommended.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of the Neurological SciencesAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice.Science. 1981; 211: 453-458
- Describing treatment effects to patients.J Gen Intern Med. 2003; 18: 948-959
- Framing effects: an analytic–holistic perspective.J Exp Soc Psychol. 2003; 39: 610-617
- Motivation and representational processes in adulthood: the effects of social accountability and information relevance.Psychol Aging. 2001; 16: 629-642
- Framing effects in younger and older adults.J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2005; 60: 215-218
- Medical decision-making capacity in patients with mild cognitive impairment.Neurology. 2007; 69: 1528-1535
- Decision-making with explicit and stable rules in mild Alzheimer's disease.Neuropsychologia. 2007; 45: 1632-1641
- Impact of ambiguity and risk on decision making in mild Alzheimer's disease.Neuropsychologia. 2008; 46: 2043-2055
- Numeracy and decision making.Psychol Sci. 2006; 17: 407-413
- Decisions under ambiguity and decisions under risk: correlations with executive functions and comparisons of two different gambling tasks with implicit and explicit rules.J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2007; 29: 86-99
- Executive dysfunction as a risk marker for substance abuse: the role of impulsive personality traits.Behav Sci Law. 2008; 26: 799-822
- Research criteria for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: revising the NINCDS-ADRDA criteria.Lancet Neurol. 2007; 6: 734-746
- Current concepts in mild cognitive impairment.Arch Neurol. 2001; 58: 1985-1992
- Normal ranges of neuropsychological tests for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.Stud Health Technol Inform. 2000; 77: 195-199
- CLOX: an executive clock drawing task.J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1998; 64: 588-594
- Arithmetic skills in patients with unilateral cerebral lesions.Cortex. 1986; 22: 611-620
- Number processing and calculation–normative data from healthy adults.Clin Neuropsychol. 2003; 17: 331-350
- Der Aachener Aphasie Test (AAT).Hogrefe, Göttingen1983
- WMS-R Wechsler Gedächtnistest – Revidierte Fassung.Hans Huber, Bern2000
- Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale - German Version (HADS-D).Hans Huber, Bern1995
- The framing effect: medical implications.Ann Ital Med Int. 2005; 20: 1-9
- Risky decision making across three arenas of choice: are younger and older adults differently susceptible to framing effects?.J Gen Psychol. 2005; 132: 81-92
- End-of-life medical treatment choices: do survival chances and out-of-pocket costs matter?.Med Decis Making. 2008; 28: 511-523
- Natural frequencies help older adults and people with low numeracy to evaluate medical screening tests.Med Decis Making. 2009; 29: 368-371
- Using icon arrays to communicate medical risks: overcoming low numeracy.Health Psychol. 2009; 28: 210-216
- A meta-analysis of the effects of presenting treatment benefits in different formats.Med Decis Making. 2007; 27: 638-654
- The orbitofrontal cortex, real-world decision making, and normal aging.Ann NY Acad Sci. 2007; 1121: 480-498
- The impact of the format of graphical presentation on health-related knowledge and treatment choices.Patient Educ Couns. 2008; 73: 448-455
- Who profits from visual aids: overcoming challenges in people's understanding of risks.Soc Sci Med. 2010; 70: 1019-1025
Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
August 30,
2010
Received in revised form:
August 26,
2010
Received:
March 8,
2010
Identification
Copyright
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
