A randomized controlled trial of cognitive debiasing improves assessment and treatment selection for XXXX .

@entity1 @entity162 @entity308
OBJECTIVE: This study examined the efficacy of a new cognitive debiasing intervention in reducing decision-making errors in the assessment of @entity162 ( @entity162 ). METHOD: The study was a randomized controlled trial using case vignette methodology. @entity1 were 137 mental health professionals working in different regions of the United States (M = 8.6    7.5 years of experience). @entity1 were randomly assigned to a (a) brief overview of @entity162 (control condition), or (b) the same brief overview plus a cognitive debiasing intervention (treatment condition) that educated @entity1 about common cognitive pitfalls (e.g., base-rate neglect, search satisficing) and taught corrective strategies (e.g., mnemonics, Bayesian tools). Both groups evaluated 4 identical case vignettes. Primary outcome measures were clinicians' diagnoses and treatment decisions. The vignette characters' race or ethnicity was experimentally manipulated. RESULTS: @entity1 in the treatment group showed better overall judgment accuracy, p < .001, and committed significantly fewer decision-making errors, p < .001. Inaccurate and somewhat accurate diagnostic decisions were significantly associated with different treatment and clinical recommendations, particularly in cases where @entity1 missed comorbid conditions, failed to detect the possibility of hypomania or @entity162 in @entity308 , and misdiagnosed classic @entity162 . In contrast, effects of @entity1 race were negligible. CONCLUSIONS: The cognitive debiasing intervention outperformed the control condition. Examining specific heuristics in cases of @entity162 may identify especially problematic mismatches between typical habits of thought and characteristics of the disorder. The debiasing intervention was brief and delivered via the Web; it has the potential to generalize and extend to other diagnoses as well as to various practice and training settings. (PsycINFO Database Record
