A role for regulatory focus in explaining and combating clinical inertia.
OBJECTIVE
It is well established that clinical inertia generates suboptimal care in patients with chronic diseases, and policies and interventions have yet to satisfactorily address the problem.


METHODS
This paper integrates the relevant literatures on clinical inertia and Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) from psychology to identify an actionable explanatory mechanism.


RESULTS
We review RFT and show that it provides a mechanism that may explain key provider contributions to clinical inertia. We then identify two general intervention strategies based on RFT: one that changes individual sensitivity to positive/negative outcomes and another that maintains the sensitivity to positive/negative outcome but frames how information is provided to match the sensitivity.


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that RFT is a plausible explanation to guide the development of policies and interventions for mitigating clinical inertia.
Veazie
Peter J
PJ
Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14642, USA. peter_veazie@urmc.rochester.edu
Qian
Feng
F
D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D006291:Health Policy; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology*; D011322:Primary Prevention; D011594:Psychometrics; D035501:Uncertainty