Abstract
Since cognitive abilities have been shown to decrease with age, it is expected that older physicians would not perform as well as their younger counterparts on clinical cases unless their expertise can counteract the cognitive effects of aging. However, studies on the topic have shown contradictory results. This study aimed to further investigate the effect of aging on physicians’ diagnostic accuracy when diagnosing prevalent and less prevalent cases based on clinical vignettes. A mixed design was used to assess the influence of case prevalence (high vs. low) as a within-subjects factor, and age group as a between subjects factor (50 years old; n = 19) on the diagnostic accuracy of 65 family physicians and 25 residents. Repeated Measure ANOVA revealed a significant effect of case prevalence (p
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 561-570 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Advances in Health Sciences Education |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 2016 |
Keywords
- Cognitive aging
- Diagnostic performance
- Family physicians
- Pattern recognition
- Prevalent and less prevalent cases
- Working memory