A Brief Feedback Intervention for Diagnostic Overshadowing

Clinical decision-making errors are well-documented among both experienced clinicians and students. One robust clinical decision-making error is called diagnostic overshadowing (DO), which occurs when the presence of one diagnosis interferes with the detection of other diagnoses. This study tested whether two types of instruction and brief feedback interventions reduced the likelihood of DO. Specifically, content-based feedback and principle-based feedback significantly reduced the likelihood of DO among doctoral students in clinical and counseling psychology (N = 220). An intervention effect was found when the training task and the target task were highly similar. Recommendations for improving diagnostic decision-making among trainees in professional psychology are discussed.