Post-Hoc Enthusiasm and Wariness
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Patient self-report.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Health Behavior. Basic parameters: No limits · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Center list to be confirmed — check the primary protocol.
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
Unsure about the terms? Read our patient guide →
Overview
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.
Detailed 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).
Interventions
- Other Patient self-report
Simulated patient following structured script
Primary outcome measures
- Response variable in each survey is a binary recommendation whether to continue the vitamin supplement or discontinue the vitamin supplement [Time frame: Short-term (less than 5 minutes)]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Community pharmacist
Exclusion criteria
- Outside Ontario
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Double blind
- Primary purpose
- Health services research
Study locations
Center list to be confirmed — check the primary protocol.
Identifiers
NCT: NCT05686889 · 5692