Those high in dispositional optimism tend to expect positive future outcomes in the aggregate. However, a different type of optimism is an enduring personality characteristic referred to as dispositional optimism. 5, 9- 11 Individuals possessing this bias tend to engage in defensive processing of information, overestimating their prospects for benefit and/or underestimating their susceptibility to the risks associated with the event in question. One type of optimism, unrealistic optimism, is an event-specific bias that has been associated with distortions in risk/benefit assessment in a range of health-related contexts, including early-phase oncology trials. 8 Failure to distinguish the different types of optimism can lead researchers and ethicists to disagree when debating its ethical significance for informed consent. 5, 6 This apparent contradiction may be explained by the fact that optimism is not a unitary psychological construct. 1- 7 Although some have claimed that expressions of optimism alone are never problematic in clinical research, 3 prior studies have documented the potential for optimism to impair informed consent. 1 Therefore, the ethical significance of this optimism has been an ongoing concern among researchers and ethicists. Although it is true that some participants may benefit, these trials are not designed to provide participants with therapeutic benefit. Patient-subjects in early-phase oncology trials often report high expectations for personal therapeutic benefit. Not all manifestations of optimism are the same, and different types of optimism likely have different consequences for informed consent in early-phase oncology research.
#Dispositional optimism trial#
The data from the current study indicate that these expectations are associated with either a dispositionally positive outlook on life or biased expectations concerning specific aspects of trial participation.
High expectations for therapeutic benefit among patient-subjects in early-phase oncology trials should not be assumed to result from misunderstanding of specific information regarding the trials. 0001), but not dispositional optimism, was found to be independently associated with the therapeutic misconception. 02) and unrealistic optimism ( P<.0001) were found to be independently associated with high expectations for personal therapeutic benefit. On multivariate analysis, both dispositional optimism ( P =. Dispositional optimism was found to be weakly associated with unrealistic optimism (Spearman r, 0.215 P =. RESULTSĭispositional optimism was found to be significantly associated with higher expectations for personal therapeutic benefit (Spearman rank correlation coefficient, 0.333 P<.0001), but was not associated with the therapeutic misconception (Spearman r, -0.075 P =. Patient-subjects completed questionnaires designed to measure expectations for therapeutic benefit, dispositional optimism, unrealistic optimism, and the therapeutic misconception. The authors also assessed how dispositional optimism related to unrealistic optimism. The authors assessed whether dispositional optimism would be related to high expectations for personal therapeutic benefit reported by patient-subjects in these trials but not to the therapeutic misconception. However, optimism is not a unitary construct it also can be defined as a general disposition, or what is called dispositional optimism. Prior research has identified unrealistic optimism as a bias that might impair informed consent among patient-subjects in early-phase oncology trials.
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