As humans we are filled with biases. The way we perceive people, make judgements about what we see rather than what we know. The things that are within us even though we are not totally aware that they exist. There are a number of biases that impact on patient safety. You can simple search via AI and this is what you get:
Confirmation Bias: Favouring information that confirms preexisting beliefs or values
Anchoring Bias: Relying too heavily on the first piece of information encountered (the “anchor”)
Availability Heuristic: Overestimating the importance of information that is readily available or recent
Hindsight Bias: Seeing events as having been predictable after they have already occurred
Fundamental Attribution Error: Overemphasising personality traits over situational factors when judging others’ behaviours
Ingroup Bias: Favouring people who belong to the same group as oneself
Halo Effect: Letting an overall impression of a person influence thoughts about their specific traits
Horn Effect: Allowing a negative impression of a person to influence thoughts about their specific traits
Groupthink: Prioritising harmony and conformity within a group over realistic appraisal of alternatives
Bandwagon Effect: Doing something primarily because others are doing it
Authority Bias: Valuing the opinions of an authority figure more than one’s own judgment
Status Quo Bias: Preferring things to stay the same over change
Gambler’s Fallacy: Believing that future probabilities are influenced by past events in a random process.
False Memory: Remembering something that did not happen or that happened differently from the way it actually occurred
Recency Effect: Remembering the most recently presented information best
Primacy Effect: Remembering the first presented information best
Misinformation Effect: The alteration of memories due to misleading post-event information
Rosy Retrospection: Remembering past events as being more positive than they were
Just-World Hypothesis: Believing that the world is just and people get what they deserve
Illusory Correlation: Perceiving a relationship between variables even when no such relationship exists
Stereotyping: Generalizing characteristics to all members of a group
Implicit Bias: Holding unconscious associations about certain groups of people
Contrast Effect: Enhancing or diminishing the perception of something when compared with a recent similar object
I cannot stress enough how important it is for these to be understood by anyone who is responsible for scrutinising others, judging others, investigating others, doing any sort of systems analysis or being part of any inquiry whether it be in terms of patient safety and or a staff complaint or issue.
Know you will influence yourself.
Run through these like a checklist and ask are they impacting on my thinking or my judgement of the incident, situation, circumstance, or person.
PATIENT SAFETY NOW 