When Should Patient Intuition be Taken Seriously?

Abstract

As a style of information processing, intuition involves implicit perceptual and cognitive processes that can be quickly and automatically executed without conscious mental will, such that people know more than they can describe. Patient intuition can influence patient and clinician decision-making and behavior. However, physicians may not always see patient intuition as credible or important, and its management in the clinical setting is poorly understood. This paper takes a step toward suggesting conditions under which patient intuition should be taken seriously. These conditions relate to the credibility or accuracy of the intuitive beliefs held by the patient, and their significance to the patient. Credibility may be increased when the intuitions of patients (1) reflect their individualized knowledge, (2) can complement the common absence of scientific evidence in managing health problems, and (3) can quickly and effectively process key information in complex cognitive tasks. Even intuitions that lack credibility can be subjectively rational and meaningful to patients, and help to shape the decisions they and clinicians make.

Developing an aftercare decision aid; assessing health professionals' and patients' preferences

“…Moreover, patients reported to use rational processes, intuitive processes or a combination as is in line with current viewpoints about medical decision‐making (Buetow & Mintoft, ; Bate, Hutchinson, Underhill, & Maskrey, ; Ubel, ). Therefore, both rational and intuitive processes should be facilitated by the PtDA (De Vries, Fagerlin, Witteman, & Scherer, ).…”

“…HPs perceived their role in the decision‐making process was mainly to provide the patient with evidence‐based medical information. Previous studies have shown that rationally based health decisions are viewed as more viable and credible by HPs than intuitive‐based decisions; for these are thought to be more bias prone (Buetow & Mintoft, ). Therefore, some HPs claim to base their health decisions on rational deductions and are reluctant to take patients' intuition into account (Buetow & Mintoft, ).…”

“…Previous studies have shown that rationally based health decisions are viewed as more viable and credible by HPs than intuitive‐based decisions; for these are thought to be more bias prone (Buetow & Mintoft, ). Therefore, some HPs claim to base their health decisions on rational deductions and are reluctant to take patients' intuition into account (Buetow & Mintoft, ). In contrast, recent research shows HPs do use their own intuition in clinical decision‐making (Gillespie, Chaboyer, St John, Morley, & Nieuwenhoven, ) and patients in this study indicated that their decisions were based much more on intuitive processes as well.…”

Evidence-Based Practice in Clinical Social Work

“…Many kinds of evidence may have relevance to clinical decision making. Buetow and Kenealy (2000) and Buetow and Mintoft (2011) argue that EBM too severely limits the use of nonscientific knowledge, including patient intuition, that may complement, and enhance EBP decision making.…”

Intuition as an integrative and rehumanising force: commentary on Braude (2012)

“…Although a full examination of the book is beyond the scope of this review, I do wish to comment on key issues raised in chapter 6. As a public critic of EBM who has also suggested conditions under which clinicians should take patient intuition seriously [3], I agree that intuition is an inherent and valuable part of the process of clinical judgement, linking tacit with explicit understanding in order to reintegrate the modern scientific method and concern for the whole person. I also recognize the irony in EBM seeing intuition as flawed, yet deriving some of its own popularity 'from the intuitively obvious nature of its name' [4].…”