Sensitivity Analysis of the Influence of Doctor-Patient Interaction on the Specific Processes of Clinical Decisions Adoption in Oncology

The way of making clinical decisions in oncology lays under conditions of uncertainty, and an important role is played by psychological factors and medical experience. The decision factors must be quantified through their verisimilitude degree, e.g. by use of the criterion of weighted optimism (Hurwicz). The paper describes the way of establishing the correlation indices of medical criteria vs. individual factors, and a sensitivity analysis was developed taking into account the optimism degree of the patient. Finally, it resulted that the optimistic patient seems to be more concerned with compliance with the treatment related to the long-term survival, compared to the pessimistic patient, who is majorly concerned with the immediate chances of survival, having as reference the doctor’s experience. It is obvious that before adopting clinical decisions in oncology, even if they are based on doctor-patient agreement, an evaluation of the degree of optimism of the patient seems to be necessary.