What motivates adherence to medical recommendations? The procedural justice approach to gaining deference in the medical arena

Tom Tyler, Avital Mentovich, Sagarika Satyavada

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Although it is within their long-term interest, patients often fail to follow health care recommendations made by medical experts. This failure results in the widespread occurrence of preventable health problems and a significant increase in health care costs. Taking a new approach to confronting this issue, this paper examines whether the procedural justice model, which has been useful in explaining cooperation with legal and managerial authorities, can provide a basis for increasing patients’ willingness to voluntarily adhere to health care recommendations. Three studies tested and supported this proposition. Study 1 experimentally manipulated physicians’ procedural fairness or unfairness to explore its influence on patients’ acceptance of doctors’ recommendations. Study 2 used patients’ reports about the fairness of their personal physicians and linked those evaluations to their willingness to follow their doctor’s recommendations. Finally, study 3 explored the role of general procedural justice judgments in promoting willingness to accept health policies when they are advocated by private doctors and government health care authorities. The results of all three studies support the argument that when health care authorities use fair procedures, patients are more likely to accept their recommendations. Importantly, this procedural justice effect is distinct from, and in some cases stronger than, the influence of competence.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)350-370
Number of pages21
JournalRegulation and Governance
Volume8
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Keywords

  • Deference to authority
  • Health care
  • Procedural justice
  • Relational models of authority

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Public Administration
  • Law

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'What motivates adherence to medical recommendations? The procedural justice approach to gaining deference in the medical arena'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this