The impact of personal pseudoscientific beliefs in the pursuit for non-evidence-based health care
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17267/2675-021Xevidence.2021.e3516Keywords:
Alternative health care. Public Health Care Policy. Beliefs. Pseudoscience.Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Pseudoscientific beliefs are widespread in society and are influenced by several factors. The endorsement of alternative medicine treatments, mostly not evidence based, has relevant negative impacts on health care public policies. The understanding of the impact of pseudoscientific beliefs on the endorsement of alternative treatments is a relevant issue in this matter. OBJECTIVES: We aim at describing scientific and pseudoscientific beliefs and its impact on the endorsement of evidence and non-evidence-based health care treatments. METHOD: We conducted a survey in a representative sample of 2,091 participants from all Brazil geopolitical regions and 130 different cities. We measured knowledge about health treatments, including alternative medicine treatments, and trust in each treatment, if treatment had been previously sought, if treatments should be funded by the public health system, among other issues. We also measured beliefs in scientific and pseudoscientific claims using a 5-point Likert agreement scale with 9 items with two factors: Scientific beliefs and Pseudoscientific beliefs. RESULTS: Our results show that most part of the sample recognizes conventional medicine as a treatment (64.5%), but also alternative medicine practices such as homeopathy (69.2%), and spiritual therapy (68.6%). We found that support of all alternative medicine treatments is significantly predicted by pseudoscientific beliefs (betas regression coefficients ranging from .13 to .38 all p <.01). On the other hand, the support of evidence-based medicine is rooted in scientific beliefs (beta = .12, p<.01). CONCLUSION: Our results have shown a high rate of prevalence of pseudoscientific beliefs related to non-evidence-based health treatments. It also shreds a favorable evidence that general pseudoscientific beliefs are relevant to assess the endorsement of non-evidence-based healthcare.Downloads
References
Bunge M. What is pseudoscience? Pseudoscience can be clearly distinguished from science only if a number of features are checked. The Skeptical Inquire. 1984;(9):36–46.
Hansson SO. Defining pseudoscience and science. In: Pigliucci M, Boudry M, editors. Philosophy of pseudoscience: Reconsidering the demarcation problem. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2013. p. 61–77.
Pigliucci M. The demarcation problem: A (belated) response to Laudan. In: Pigliussi M, Boudry M, editors. Philosophy of pseudoscience: Reconsidering the demarcation problem. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2013. p. 9–28.
Shermer M. Science and pseudoscience: The difference in practice and the difference it makes. In: Pigliussi M, Boudry M, editors. Philosophy of pseudoscience: Reconsidering the demarcation problem. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2013. p. 203–223.
Pilati R. Ciência e Pseudociência: Por que acreditamos apenas naquilo em que queremos acreditar. São Paulo: Contexto; 2018.
Pew Research Center. Americans’ health care behaviors and use of conventional and alternative medicine [Internet]. Pew Research Center; 2017. Available from: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2017/02/02/americans-health-care-behaviors-and-use-of-conventional-and-alternative-medicine/
Arieli S, Amit A, Mentser S. Identity-motivated reasoning: Biased judgments regarding political leaders and their actions. Cognition. 2019;188:64–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.12.009
Pennycook G, Rand DG. Lazy, not biased: Susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning. Cognition. 2019;188:39–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.011
Pennycook G, Rand DG. Who falls for fake news? The roles of bullshit receptivity, overclaiming, familiarity, and analytic thinking. J Pers. 2019;88(2):185-200. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12476
Gervais WM, Norenzayan A. Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief. Science. 2012;336(6080):493–6. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1215647
Gervais WM. Override the controversy: Analytic thinking predicts endorsement of evolution. Cognition. 2015;142:312–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.05.011
Pennycook G, Cheyne JA, Koehler DJ, Fugelsang JA. Is the cognitive reflection test a measure of both reflection and intuition?. Behav Res Methods. 2016;48(1):341–8. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0576-1
Pennycook G, Cheyne JA, Seli P, Koehler DJ, Fugelsang JA. Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief. Cognition 2012;123(3):335–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.003
Shenhav A, Rand DG, Greene JD. Divine intuition: cognitive style influences belief in God. J Exp Psychol Gen. 2012;141(3):423–8. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025391
Smith K, Ernst E, Colquhoun D, Sampson W. 'Complementary & Alternative Medicine' (CAM): Ethical And Policy Issues. Bioethics. Bioethics; 2016;30(2):60–2. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12243
Bishop JP, Stenger VJ. Retroactive prayer: lots of history, not much mystery, and no science. BMJ. 2004;329(7480):1444-6. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.329.7480.1444
Ernst E. Alternative Medicine: A Critical Assessment of 150 Modalities. Cham: Springer; 2019.
Cheung MWL, Leng K, Au K. Evaluating Multilevel Models in Cross-Cultural Research: An Illustration With Social Axioms. J. Cross-Cult. Psychol. 2006;37(5):522–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022106290476
Leung K, Bond MH. Social Axioms: A Model for Social Beliefs in Multicultural Perspective. Adv Exp Soc Psychol. 2004;36:119–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(04)36003-X
Goldacre B. Ciência Picareta. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira; 2013.
Ministério da Saúde. Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde [Internet]. Available from: http://bvsms.saude.gov.br/bvs/saudelegis/gm/2006/prt0971_03_05_2006.html,%202020
Dyer KD, Hall RE. Effect of Critical Thinking Education on Epistemically Unwarranted Beliefs in College Students. Res High Educ. 2019;60:293–314. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-018-9513-3
Siegrist M, Bearth A. Chemophobia in Europe and reasons for biased risk perceptions. Nat Chem. 2019;(11):1071–72. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0377-8
Schmidt K, Ernst E. MMR vaccination advice over the Internet. Vaccine. 2003;21(11-12):1044-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0264-410x(02)00628-x
National Science Board. Public Knowledge about S&T [Internet]. National Science Foundation; 2018. Available from: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/report/sections/science-and-technology-public-attitudes-and-understanding/public-knowledge-about-s-t
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Natália Pasternak Taschner, Carlos Orsi, Paulo Almeida, Ronaldo Pilati
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The authors retain copyrights, transferring to the Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare only the right of first publication. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
