Does time pressure have a negative effect on diagnostic accuracy?

Abstract

Purpose Studies suggest time pressure has negative effects on physicians' working conditions and may lead to suboptimal patient care and medical errors. Experimental evidence supporting this is lacking, however. This study investigated the effect of time pressure on diagnostic accuracy. Method In 2013, senior internal medicine residents at three hospitals in Saudi Arabia were divided randomly into two groups: a time-pressure condition and a control condition without time pressure. Both groups diagnosed eight written clinical cases presented on computers. In the time-pressure condition, after completing each case, participants received information that they were behind schedule. Response time was recorded, and diagnostic accuracy was scored. Results The 23 participants in the time-pressure condition spent significantly less time diagnosing the cases (mean = 96.00 seconds) than the 19 control participants (mean = 151.97 seconds) (P