Extending DOSPERT to medical risk and Japanese translation

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Cross-cultural differences in risk perception have received limited attention, often primarily in the context of monetary or environmental risk. Even these studies, however, have noted potentially important areas of both transnational and cross-cultural commonality and difference. Differences in risk attitude may be important predictors of variation in decision making between and within cultures. In contrast with risk attitude in other domains, especially financial investing, patients facing health-related decisions are rarely called upon to formally determine their level of risk tolerance, and to communicate these attitudes to their physicians or families. Past research has established the importance of domain-specific measures of risk-taking, and the study of differences in risk attitudes across cultures and nationalities. In particular, the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale (DOSPERT) represents not only an important instrument for understanding differences in risk attitudes across domains but a methodology for studying and incorporating new risk domains. This project will develop, refine, and translate into Japanese a new domain-specific measure of risk attitude for medical risks borne as a patient, which can be incorporated into future editions of DOSPERT.The project has several broader impacts. It supports an initiative to enhance training in medical decision making at Tokyo Tech and provides a U.S. graduate student with training and exposure to international research. This project directly contributes to enhancing the infrastructure for research and education. Specifically, it supports the research partnership between UIC and Tokyo Institute of Technology, an emerging international collaboration. In addition, the project expands the widely-used DOSPERT scale to include an additional risk domain and an additional translation, and the instrument is soon to be available to researchers through scientific publication and submission to the DOSPERT web archive. Potential benefits of the proposed activity to society include further understanding of risk perception and risk attitude in medical decision making, a domain with considerable social importance in both the U.S. and Japan.