When a physician asks health-related questions, they usually expect the wholehearted truth.
After all, honesty is supposed to be the best policy. However, if you’ve stretched the truth to your doctor, you may not be alone.
A new study shows that between 60 and 80 percent of patients say that they haven’t told their doctors the truth or have withheld information from them.
This study was published in the JAMA Network Open journal by researchers at University of Utah Health and Middlesex Community College, Connecticut, in conjunction with authors from the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, and the University of Iowa.
They found that the most common reason for withholding information is patients not wanting to feel judged or lectured.
“While the idea that patients may not share everything with their clinicians is perhaps to be expected, we were surprised at how common it appears to be for patients to withhold information or beliefs,” said study co-author Brian Zikmund-Fisher, PhD, research associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan in a released statement.