The role of emotion in clinical decision-making is an under-researched and sometimes controversial topic.
There is strong neurological and practical evidence for the importance of emotion as a powerful driver of choice and healthcare providers are no exception to this. Clinicians’ experienced emotions can and do affect clinical decision-making.
For example: Research conducted using Oracle Life Sciences’ proprietary behavioral science-based STAR (Sense-Think-ACT-Relate) framework in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) showed emotional associations to be the strongest driver of treatment recommendation among oncologists and onco-haematologists, more so than rational, social or environmental influences, with the strongest individual driver being ‘a treatment that I love’.
Clearly, if we only measure rational drivers in research, we miss a large part of the picture.
The challenge, however, is that emotions can be difficult to quantify. They are visceral, nebulous, sometimes irrational. They can be difficult to explain in a traditional written question and answer format. We need to think differently if we are to measure and quantify emotion more effectively. At Oracle Life Sciences, we recognize that in order to truly understand behavior, we must examine all factors which may have an influence upon it.
A more holistic understanding of behavioral drivers also provides greater insight into opportunities for differentiation from competitors, particularly in markets where the advent of me-too brands leads to lack of clinical differentiation across products.
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