ArticleBMC medical education2017
Investing in the use of a checklist during differential diagnoses consideration: what's the trade-off?
Article in BMC medical education, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect on diagnostic accuracy of cognitive reasoning tools for the workplace setting: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ quality & safety · 2022Pooled it
- Checklists to reduce diagnostic error: a systematic review of the literature using a human factors framework.BMJ open · 2022Pooled it
- Methods to Improve Diagnostic Reasoning in Undergraduate Medical Education in the Clinical Setting: a Systematic Review.Journal of general internal medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Premature closure underlies bias in medical diagnosis in students: A randomised controlled experiment.Medical education · 2026Trial
- Toward Safer Diagnoses: A SEIPS-Based Narrative Review of Diagnostic Errors.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Article
- Educational strategies in the health professions to mitigate cognitive and implicit bias impact on decision making: a scoping review.BMC medical education · 2023Article
- Creation and evaluation of a participatory child abuse and neglect workshop for medical students.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- Perception of the usability and implementation of a metacognitive mnemonic to check cognitive errors in clinical setting.BMC medical education · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundA key challenge clinicians face when considering differential diagnoses is whether the patient data have been adequately collected. Insufficient data may inadvertently lead to premature closure of the diagnostic process. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that the application of a mnemonic checklist helps to stimulate more patient data collection, thus leading to better diagnostic consideration.
methodsA total of 88 final year medical students were assigned to either an educational intervention group or a control group in a non-equivalent group post-test only design. Participants in the intervention group received a tutorial on the use of a mnemonic checklist aimed to minimize cognitive errors in clinical decision-making. Two weeks later, the participants in both groups were given a script concordance test consisting of 10 cases, with 3 items per case, to assess their clinical decisions when additional data are given in the case scenarios.
resultsThe Mann-Whitney U-test performed on the total scores from both groups showed no statistical significance (U = 792, z = -1.408, p = 0.159). When comparisons were made for the first half and the second half of the SCT, it was found that participants in the intervention group performed significantly better than participants in the control group in the first half of the test, with median scores of 9.15 (IQR 8.00-10.28) vs. 8.18 (IQR 7.16-9.24) respectively, U = 642.5, z = -2.661, p = 0.008. No significant difference was found in the second half of the test, with the median score of 9.58 (IQR 8.90-10.56) vs. 9.81 (IQR 8.83-11.12) for the intervention group and control group respectively (U = 897.5, z = -0.524, p = 0.60).
conclusionChecklist use in differential diagnoses consideration did show some benefit. However, this benefit seems to have been traded off by the time and effort in using it. More research is needed to determine whether this benefit could be translated into clinical practice after repetitive use.
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Registered trials
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