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Models of the medical consultation: opportunities and limitations of a game theory perspective

¹ Division of General Practice and Primary Health Care, Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester General Hospital, Leicester LE5 4PW, UK
² School of Psychology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK

Correspondence to:
Carolyn Tarrant
Division of General Practice and Primary Health Care, Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Gwendolen Road, Leicester LE5 4PW, UK; ccp3{at}le.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
The medical consultation is best understood as a two-way social interaction involving interactive decision making. Game theory—a theory based on assumptions of rational choice and focusing on interactive decision making—has the potential to provide models of the consultation that can be used to generate empirically testable predictions about the factors that promote quality of care. Three different game structures—the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, the Assurance game, and the Centipede game—all provide insights into the possible underlying dynamics of the doctor-patient interaction. Further empirical work is needed to uncover the underlying game structures that occur most commonly in medical consultations. Game theory has the potential to provide a new conceptual and theoretical basis for future empirical work on the interaction between doctors and their patients.

Keywords: game theory; medical consultation; doctor-patient relationship; primary health care; decision making

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