Premium
Diagnostic Decision Making: Do Counselors Delay Final Judgments?
Author(s) -
Hill Carrie L.,
Ridley Charles R.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of counseling and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.805
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1556-6676
pISSN - 0748-9633
DOI - 10.1002/j.1556-6676.2001.tb01948.x
Subject(s) - debiasing , psychology , clinical decision making , diagnostic test , medical decision making , empirical research , applied psychology , social psychology , medicine , medical emergency , family medicine , pediatrics , statistics , mathematics
Although there is a theoretical, empirical rationale warranting the delay of diagnostic decision making, it is unknown whether this debiasing strategy is actually implemented in counseling practice. This study investigated whether counselors delayed their diagnostic decisions in a setting that allowed them the option of doing so. Clinical records were selected from a counselor training center at a large midwestern university and coded for delayed diagnostic decision making. Three pairs of chi‐square analyses were performed. Results indicated that delayed diagnostic decision making occurred to a greater extent than immediate diagnostic decision making across counselor‐client dyads, counselors, and clients.