Health emergencies and interoceptive sensibility modulate the perception of non-evidence-based drug use: Findings from the COVID-19 outbreak.

ABSTRACT: Scientific evidence plays an important role in the therapeutic decision-making process. What happens when physicians are forced to make therapeutic decisions under uncertainty? The absence of scientific guidelines at the beginning of a pandemic due to an unknown virus, such as COVID-19, could influence the perceived legitimacy of the application of non-evidence-based therapeutic approaches. This paper reports on a test of this hypothesis, in which we administered an ad hoc questionnaire to a sample of 64 Italian physicians during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy (April 2020). The questionnaire statements regarding the legitimacy of off-label or experimental drugs were framed according to three different scenarios (Normality, Emergency and COVID-19). Furthermore, as the perc

SUBMITTER: Salvato G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8389377 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature