title: Patient and physician characteristics influencing medical decisions in asthma.
abstract: The present study explores the complex interplay of objective indices of illness-severity and personal characteristics of patients and physicians as they influence judged illness-severity and medical decisions concerning length of hospitalization and intensity of prescribed oral corticosteroids in a chronic asthmatic population. The results indicate that, depending on the physician's personal characteristics, he may: a) confuse his patient's psychological physical distress, resulting in medical judgment and decisions being influenced by patient personality; b) accurately distinguish between psychological physical distress but treat a psychological problem as though it were a medical problem; c) judge and treat the patient's illness objectively, regardless of the patient's personality. These findings stress the importance of expanding the present biomedical model of medicine to include a better appreciation of how social, psychological, and behavioral factors influence the medical decisions about treatment and the resulting outcome.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D003657:Decision Making; D005239:Fear; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D007902:Length of Stay; D008950:MMPI; D008875:Middle Aged; D010556:Personality Tests; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012129:Respiratory Function Tests