An interventional study of In person and Online interaction in Focus is on Behavior of Health Professionals Generally, sponsored by Ayoub Bouguettaya. Not yet recruiting. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-01-20.
Sponsored by Ayoub Bouguettaya · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research
The investigators will be doing this study to understand how the environment of communication (including talking about health) impact doctors' ability to find solutions and health issues to clinical problems for patients.
Participants are being asked to take part in this research study because they are either:
Participants will do a few tasks:
Interview with a medical student/patient: This will be a recorded interview between a medical student and person acting as a patient. In this meeting, they will either meet online or in person, with white noise on or off, in a brightly lit room or a regularly lit room.
This study will link two participants: a final year medical student and an acting patient. Both will fill out consent forms outlining the study with the above purpose) standardized demographic information, and psychometric scales, including ones measuring empathy, extraversion, openness, working memory, health literacy, and fatigue. They will then be randomly put into a dyad (consisting of one medical student and one acting patient). The acting patient (who will required to be of good health- no chronic or current health issues) will be asked to pretend to have a rare or hard to diagnose health condition, having been given a document providing details of the health condition and presenting symptoms. They will be told that otherwise, they should respond to the questions as though they are themselves (for example, if the participant asked, "how tall are you", they can disclose their actual height). The medical student will be given instructions to ask all relevant questions, including a list of potential topics they should ask about, some of which are embarrassing but relevant (e.g., bowel movements).
They will then be assigned to meet the other member of their dyad in one of two conditions: online or in person (unknown to the participants). They will then act as though this is a clinical interview, to diagnose the condition. Participants will be told the investigators will be changing the lighting and background noise as a sham treatment (white noise machine and desk lamp), concealing the study's true purpose: to understand how online versus offline environments the creativity of medical providers and the tendency toward disclosure. The interview will be recorded and transcribed. At the end of the interview, participants will be debriefed by the investigators, with an explanation of the deception, and be given the ability to withdraw their data at that point.
This is the only study on the registry with Ayoub Bouguettaya as lead sponsor.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
(for medical student cohort)
(for the acting participant cohort)
Exclusion Criteria:
(for medical student cohort)
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Participant allocated to this arm will meet online, although they will be in the same building. They will have a conversation over an encrypted video platform.
Behavioral: Online interaction
Participant allocated to this arm will meet in person, in the same room. They will have a conversation face to face in an office setting.
Behavioral: In person
Participant dyads will meet in person for a mock clinical interview, seated at a desk opposite their counterpart. They will be in an office setting. There will be a sham white noise and lamp device placed on the desk.
Participant dyads will meet online in a mock clinical interview, via an encrypted video call, seated at a desk. They will be in an office setting. There will be a sham white noise and lamp device placed on the desk.
Creativity in medical practice (medical student- number of possible diagnoses)
Creativity of medical practitioners will be measured using the number of possible diagnoses generated by the medical student.
Time frame: From time of enrollment to end of study duration (1 hour)
Creativity in medical practice (medical student- correct diagnosis reached)
Creativity of medical practitioners will be measured by whether or not they get the correct diagnosis.
Time frame: From time of enrollment to end of study duration (1 hour)
Tendency toward disclosure by patients
We will measure how many words the acting participants use to describe their health condition when asked an embarrassing question, without further prompting by the medical student.
Time frame: From time of enrollment to end of study duration (1 hour)
No study locations are listed for this record.
Plan to share: Yes — All data, with the exception of the interview transcripts or recordings, will be made available. This includes participant demographics with random adjustments to ensure that participant confidentiality is not compromised.
Supporting information: Study protocol, Sap, Icf, Analytic code
This study is not yet recruiting, as verified in Jan 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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