Empowering Consumers to Engage with Health Decisions: Making Medical Choices Feel Easy Increases Patient Participation

Abstract

Although modern medical practice emphasizes the importance of empowering consumers to participate in medical decisions, consumers often report having less say than they desire. Three experiments demonstrate that increasing the fluency with which medical decisions are communicated can increase participation: consumers were more likely to participate in medical treatment decisions (vs. delegate to a medical professional) when information about their options was presented in a fluent (vs. disfluent) format. Fluency increases participation by increasing subjective comprehension (i.e., by making people feel like they better understand the choice and feel more confident in their ability to choose), independent of objective comprehension. The effect of fluency was strongest among consumers with inadequate health literacy and under time pressure and persisted regardless of past experience. Together, these studies suggest that policies aimed at making medical information easier to process can empower consumers to participate in decisions regarding their health.